After his girlfriend, Laura, starts seeing another man, Bruno decides to get revenge. Laura still sleeps with Bruno occasionally; but when his efforts to get her to exclusively commit to him fail, Bruno comes up with what he calls Plan B. Having heard gossip (incorrect we find out later) that Pablo, Laura‘s new boyfriend, had slept with a man, Bruno decides to make everyone think that he and Pablo are a couple. This brief synopsis of the plot might imply that this film is shallow fluff, the kind of film Americans would probably make from such a story. However, Plan B is not your typical rom-com or bromance.
Bruno initially gets close to Pablo when they bond over Blind, a TV show with which they are both obsessed. Then, at Pablo‘s invitation, Bruno starts staying over — platonically. They reminisce about when they were twelve years old and did sleepovers and would stay up late and chat with their friends for hours. Becoming enraptured by their boyish friendship, Bruno at one point asks Pablo, “If you were a toy, which one would you be?” While stoned, the two engaging young men ingeniously deconstruct Peter Pan and Neverland. But eventually, in the words of the director, “What started out as a joke derails.”
Astute European reviewers have observed that Plan B, even with its Buenos Aires location, is like the comedies of Marivaux (1688-1763), the French playwright, in which a “mental ‘game’ not only serves as a delaying tactic [between two people], for neither really wants to admit loving the other, but by dealing with every aspect of love except love itself, it becomes a contest in wit and rhetorical expertise” (Felicia Sturzer, “‘Marivaudage’ as Self-Representation,” The French Review 49, no. 2 (1975): 217).
The finesse with which Berger, who also wrote the script, and his actors pull off this complicated “marivaudage” is astonishing. Manuel Vignau (Bruno) and Lucas Ferraro (Pablo) give sensitive, unselfconscious performances. The final sequence of the film, in which Bruno and Pablo manage to cast off the “wit and rhetorical expertise” and achieve an honest resolution to their relationship is well worth the wait.
The young Argentinians portrayed in Plan B did not experience the dictatorship. They have the freedom to question cultural and sexual restrictions. In 2009, Argentina lifted its ban on gays in the military and in 2010 became the first Latin American country to allow same-sex marriage.
With each viewing of Plan B nuances of dialogue and acting will be discovered that were not noticed before. This film is highly recommended to sophisticated viewers and to academic libraries that collect quality GLBT films.
Reviewed by, W. Stephen Breedlove
Reference and Interlibrary Loan Librarian
La Salle University Library
