Alejandro Galdón | Me quiere, no me quiere (He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not) / 2022

love at first sight

by Douglas Messerli

 

Alejandro Galdón (screenwriter and director) Me quiere, no me quiere (He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not) / 2022 [16 minutes]

 

One day Arnau (Alejandro Serrano) accompanies his mother to the wealthy home where she works as a cleaning woman, where Arnau meets up with the family son, Javier (Daniel García). It is love at first sight for the young Arnau, and Javier seems receptive, beginning to teach him how to play the piano. The lesson is almost immediately interrupted by his mother’s insistence that he stop playing and help her clean the house.

     Years later, both boys have grown of age, and run into each other at an unchaperoned party at a private home. Javier (now played by Jaime Antón) seems to have a girlfriend, who is so possessive of him that when they play spin the bottle and he is asked to kiss another boy, she will not permit it, and leaves in protest.

     Javier also leaves the room in some embarrassment that his girlfriend does not even trust him to remain faithful to her gender. Arnau (now played by Pablo Royo) follows, the two boys almost immediately taking up their friendship again after all of these years.

     By the time the night is over—after having to escape along with the other partyers when security arrives—the boys forge a true relationship, kiss, and seem to have fallen in love with one another.

    The plan is to communicate the very next day, but when Javier doesn’t answer Arnau’s messages, the latter fears he’s been ghosted and that Javier may have returned to his girlfriend. He tells his best female friend of his fears. And when he mother reports that she’s going to their wealthy home again to do the cleaning, Javier begs if he might join her, wandering around the vast home and pondering whether Javier—whom he discovers is now vacationing Paris with his family—truly loves him or not, hence Spanish director Alejandro Galdón’s simple title.

      A call from Arnau, explaining that he left his cellphone in the taxi the boys took home, which is the reason he hadn’t called, corrects everything, both boys planning to resume their relationship with Javier returns home.

       This is a simple, short romantic comedy about first love, coming of age, and, in some senses, coming out. And there is nothing profound about it. Yet the film is still charming and worth the devotion of 16 minutes to watch the well-filmed scenes play out.

 

Los Angeles, March 9, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (March 2024).