5/10
Uneven comedy-drama sends wrong message to target audience
16 April 2005
Warning: Spoilers
I LOVE YOU BABY

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Dolby Digital

Struck by a falling disco ball while singing karaoke in a Madrid nightclub, a gay country boy (Jorge Sanz) wakes to find himself inexplicably 'straight', alienating his devastated boyfriend (Santiago Magill) who surrenders him to a relationship with beautiful single mother Tiaré Scanda. But Magill is unwilling to relinquish Sanz so easily, and makes one last desperate effort to reclaim him...

Uneven mixture of lightweight comedy and social melodrama, co-directed by Alfonso Albacete and David Menkes, which reinforces unpleasant attitudes about the 'second-class' status of gay men in macho Spanish culture. Some of the plot twists recall Pedro Almodóvar at his most outrageous (Magill adopts a female disguise to steal Sanz away from his newfound love), but the film is hamstrung by the miscasting of Sanz in a crucial role, and the unconventional ending is a disappointment. However, Magill - star of DON'T TELL ANYONE (1998), and one of the most astonishingly beautiful actors in contemporary Spanish cinema - carries the script's emotional burden with effortless grace; his brief love scenes with Sanz are entirely natural, and completely unaffected. Watch out for an *appalling* cameo by Culture Club frontman Boy George.

(Spanish dialogue)
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