Jamieson Pearce | For the Love of Julio / 2014

fast food

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jamieson Pearce (screenwriter and director) For the Love of Julio / 2014 [11 minutes]

 

Alice (Simone Young) and George (Oliver Coleman) are more than best friends. They appear to live together and truly enjoy one another’s company. She feels free to enter the bathroom while he’s on the toilet, and he is absolutely comfortable using her eyeliner before they go out to the bars in search mostly of a finding the perfect man for George and maybe Alice, depending upon who it might be that they’re both attracted to that night. “Here’s to getting laid,” she toasts as they finish up their wine and are ready to depart.

     When Alice goes up to the bar to order some more wine, she runs into two accounting jerks whose self-esteem is higher than their IQs, presuming the name of their firm will send her whirling. She finally hurries off as one of them tells her, “Alice you’ve got two terrific titties,” and spits wine on her in the midst of laughing.

      Meanwhile George spots a good-looking man at the bar and gets up the nerve to approach, asking if the other man who just left his side is his boyfriend. “No, we’re just two blokes on the town looking to pick some young cock. And then you appeared,” he replies. George and he immediately fall into a series of deep kisses.

      Unfortunately, it was all just a fantasy, George coming-to as Alice demands he stop staring at the man since he’s clearly “freaking him out.” She recounts her unpleasant experience and poses the question: “Seriously, how difficult is it to find a half-interesting guy who knows what he’s doing?” Their eyes immediately go toward a straight couple madly making out in the corner, presumably both finding the man for whom they are searching.

     They end up in a Burger King, as they probably do most nights, ecstatically moaning over their burghers as they might have the perfect man that they will never find if they stay together on their search and seek out men at the kinds of open bars they have just visited. Obviously, they love Julio Iglesias singing of “El Amor” more than the real thing, and are perfectly happy to share the search with one another instead making a real love discovery.

     Australian director Jamieson Pearce’s comic short reveals why some gay boys and their female besties will never find true love or, for that matter, as Alice might restate it, even “get a good fuck.” Hunting in pairs may work well in big game hunting, but in the search for sex works better single-O.

 

Los Angeles, July 8, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2023).