Carlos Jiménez Lucas | Despide a tu fuckboi (A Fuckboi Story) / 2023

a friend

by Douglas Messerli

 

Carlos Jiménez Lucas (screenwriter and director) Despide a tu fuckboi (A Fuckboi Story) / 2023 [10 minutes]

 

Although Spanish (Castilian) director Carlos Jiménez Lucas’ A Fuckboi Story is not terribly profound as a narrative, it is certainly one of the most beautiful and well-directed short films I have seen in some time.

      The beautiful young Uilses (Nacho Zorrilla) works in his parent’s flower shop by day, and the film begins with his closing up the shop at 9:00. He takes two beautiful purple calla lilies home with him, walking the quiet streets with his head phones on.

     Suddenly in the middle of one street encounters a former lover, David (Sergio San Millán) with whom he previously felt that they were in a relationship, while David, despite his love for Uilses treated it, evidently, simply as a friendship. He was, as the director suggests, simply a “fuckboi,” while Uilses felt deeper about David and their being together.   

     We get evidence of that passion as they continue speaking, and suddenly with full abandon, David leans forward to kiss Uilses again, the two representing their deep passion in that moment of intense kisses. David invites Uilses to join the party going on inside, and—although we can see Uilses resisting, remembering how many times David convinced him of his love in the past, only to have it revealed that his lover was not truly serious about their relationship—we can see that Uilses is tempted all over again.  But at that very moment, Oskar (Luis Carrasco) exits the party to call David back inside, making it apparent in his pleas to have David join him that he is David’s current lover or boyfriend—or as David quickly reveals in his gestures and words, Oskar is “just a friend.” When Oskar returns to the party, David once more asks Uilses to join him, moving to kiss him again. But Ulises recalls when he too was “just a friend,” reiterating for him that there is no return to a relationship with someone like David, or perhaps that there was never really was a true relationship, just a remarkable sexual frisson between the two of them.

     He turns to go, but not before giving a gentle touch to David’s bearded face. “It’s for the best,” he suggests, as he turns and leaves, with pained regret, but no longer willing to be hurt as he was in the past. He turns back to comment on David’s previous appreciation of the flowers he carries with him: “by the way, they’re calla lilies”—most species of which are “poisonous” (in humans causing irritation) and are worn in Ireland at Easter to commemorate the Republican dead.

     The story is not the most important element of this work. But the beauty of the images, the excellent acting of both leads, and the subtlety of the directing makes this work an elegant expression of what happens too often in gay relationships, when one loves another who sees people primarily as sexual beings.

 

Los Angeles, August 15, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2025).