The Astronaut Lovers film review: horny

A few months ago, Mexican actor and filmmaker Gael García Bernal bemoaned the lack of films that make the audience horny. I have to agree with him there: we see an awful lot of characters these days that are visually appealing but have no chemistry beyond a few snarky quips. And if you’re looking for queer flirting, forget it.

If the stiff, ‘everyone is beautiful and no-one is horny’ status-quo of mainstream films is the persistent rash, then programs like the Melbourne Queer Film Festival are the filmic pharmacy – from which you may be prescribed the salve of Marco Berger’s latest flick The Astronaut Lovers (Los amantes astronautas).

In this boy-meets-boy romcom, gay Spanish expat Pedro (Javier Orán) reunites unexpectedly with an Argentinian childhood friend: the very straight, very rambunctious Maxi (Lautaro Bettoni). After learning that his ex-girlfriend Sabrina is also in town, Maxi asks Pedro to pretend to be his boyfriend to win her back.

A botched threesome caused their breakup, he explains, and therefore his willingness to be more ‘experimental’ should make her forgive him. Perhaps unwisely, Pedro agrees to the deal.

The astronaut lovers: in each other’s orbit

The setup is one we’ve seen a thousand times before: a will-they, won’t-they game of romance, with familiar tropes like ‘there was only one bed’ and ‘oh no, we have to kiss in front of our friends’. In other words, the structure is familiar, but the execution is quite novel: from the beginning, there is an undeniable sexual chemistry between the two men, which they explore via fast-paced banter comprised of puns, movie, quotes, and dick jokes … so, so many dick jokes.

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Maxi asks Pedro if he’s heard the riddle about Pinocchio’s nose: if it only grows when he lies, what happens when he declares ‘my nose will grow’? ‘I’m like Pinocchio, except my dick only gets hard when I lie’, he says.

The fact that they keep returning to this topic of conversation makes perfect sense to me. Dick jokes are one of the few ‘acceptable’ ways cishet males like Maxi can talk about their sexuality, and Pedro clearly finds it both amusing and arousing. What’s surprising is how quickly their light-hearted chats evolve into deeper questions about gay sex, the definition of desire, and finding excuses to touch each other’s bodies.

In Argentina, ‘astronaut’ is a code word for a gay man. Will the men dare to go beyond the safe boundaries of heteronormativity, or just play it safe? Ah, I obviously won’t spoil it. ‘I’m an astronaut,’ Pedro says to Maxi. ‘You’re the one who’s afraid of outer space.’

Argentinian director Marco Berger strikes a nice balance in The Astronaut Lovers, between dialogue-heavy scenes filled with coded ripostes, and quiet, tension-filled scenes that examine only the actors’ faces but convey so much.

And yes, in case it wasn’t clear, it is very horny. A cold shower may be in order after this one.

The Astronaut Lovers has one more screening at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival on 20 November 2024. For more information, head to the MQFF website.