Felipe Vara de Rey | La última noche (The Last Night) / 2014

someone more than a friend

by Douglas Messerli

 

Felipe Vara de Rey (screenwriter and director) La última noche (The Last Night) / 2014 [14 minutes]

 

Two close friends, Matt Hopkins, a married USA citizen, and Gonzalo Bouza, a Spaniard whose last night in the USA occasions this male-only celebration are on a ferry, apparently to Brooklyn, where most of the celebrations of this film take place. They ask others to take pictures of them together.

     Obviously, they have become close friends and over the next few hours they reveal that closeness. They enter a club where they enjoy some good food together, while the character played by Bouza talks about when he returns he will do nothing, nothing, but climb up into his favorite mountains. Hopkins’ wife Sarah (Sarah Burkhalter) calls him just to check in, and he describes their evening as enjoyable, also awaiting her hugs upon return.

    What time will they be finished with their event. “Gonzalo says 11:00.”

    She’s excited to give their mutual dear friend a hug.

    Matt offers his friend a small gift, which he proclaims is nothing, but nicely wrapped as it is, Gonzalo is touched, and even tears up. It appears to be a DVD titled “The American.” He hugs his friend in appreciation.

    They continue drinking, occasionally moving outdoors when the noise gets too intense just to talk.

    When the music changes in the club in which they sit, despite their statements of no dancing, they both do dance, eventually they too dancing together, albeit in a kind of gestural, removed separation, although at one moment again, they do hug.

     Now at a Brooklyn sub shop—with Gonzalo now wearing his tie on his head—which both men agree is the best ever, they share sandwiches, groaning over their pleasure. “What a night, man,” Gonzalo reacts. The friendship they feel for one another is clearly palpable.

  Sarah calls again, wondering about their whereabouts, and Matt provides her with their exact address.

     Matt turns to his friend to ask him “What are you going to be doing in five years.”

     Gonzalo turns the question back on his friend, who can only answer: “I’m here man, if I’m lucky.”

     But the question remains in the air, as Matt demands Gonzalo answer, since he asked him first.

     Gonzalo doesn’t know, feeling his country has been fucked up.

     “I simply don’t know if I see the future.”

     Matt, in response, puts his arm around him, which suddenly turns into a full mouth-to-mouth kiss.”

     I cannot comprehend why in all these films when a gay man kisses a straight, or, as in this case, a seemingly straight friend kisses his best friend, that the receiver of the kiss suddenly needs to pull violently away as if receiving some sharp hostile gesture which they cannot simply endure. A kiss is just a kiss, and it should be pleasant if surprising sometimes for anyone who receives it. Our culture has suddenly turned it into a test of sexual identification and intrusion.

     As usual, in such movies, Gonzalo pulls away shocked. For suddenly it is clear Matt has poured his heart out to him and made clear his desperate love of the man soon to leave his life. We suddenly realize that the happily married man is not who he appears to be.

     Both men apologize to one another, Matt, particularly, for his untoward behavior. A moment later Sarah, a friendly, obviously forceful woman, strolls up to hug both of them. She is there to bring her husband home obviously, but is a little confused when Gonzalo refuses her offer to see also him home, presumably in a nearby car.

      We suddenly recognize what Matt will be doing in 5 years, married in a relationship, working a job in which he is perhaps not completely satisfied, with now only memories of his true love from this night.

      Vara de Rey is too good of a director to make much more of it, but he has already revealed one of the most painful moments is this presumably straight man’s life. Same sex love is impossible in his chosen world. His life is frozen in space, whereas Gonzalo’s may be unsure, but is completely open to new possibilities, and given the Spain we know today, with its excellent economy and current leadership, he will have some excellent opportunities to decide what to do with his life. Matt is doomed, as it put it earlier, “I’m here, man.” He is frozen in time and space.

 

Los Angeles, October 1, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2026).