Unknown filmmaker | Sometimes, It's More Than Just a Ride / 2017 [commercial advertisement]

drop me off second

by Douglas Messerli

 

Unknown filmmaker Sometimes, It’s More Than Just a Ride / 2017 [2 minutes] [commercial advertisement]

 

In this short gay commercial made in The Philippines, a cute young gay boy is sitting in the backseat of an Uber car when the smiling and quite aware drive suggests he stop off to pick up another customer.

 

     There is some slight resentment by the young man as he sends up text messages on his cellphone, but when he gets a look at the rider who soon joins him, everything changes, as he quickly messages of just how good-looking the second Uber rider is, unsure that he can even keep his hands off of him. Afterall, as he texts, the boy has been a long-time crush.

       Almost sweating the encounter, he asks the Uber driver to turn up the air-conditioning.

      Whereas previously he’s told the driver to drop him off at his destination first, he now suggests that he’s in no hurry, and the he can be dropped off second.

      But the bemused driver reminds him that it’s against policy to do so.

      Why is there so little traffic, he ponders, as they speed toward his end of the ride, reaching it soon after. As he begins to get out of the car, however, his fellow rider puts hand on his shoulder, startling and delighting the cute boy. He’s simply told, however, that he should get out on the left-hand side of the auto, as the second rider opens his door and exits for a moment, as the boy thanks him for the few more seconds of pleasure.

      The final credit suggests “Sometimes, it’s more than just a ride.”

 

Los Angeles, July 18, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2024).