I don't usually watch gay-specific movies: they're too angsty, presenting coming out as an unbearable trauma and life after coming out as endless heartache, loneliness, and emptiness. But High Tide (2024) is set in the gay resort of Provincetown, and it has a lot of n*de photos. Surely the guys can't be depressed, lonely, and empty while looking at cocks? But I'll check out the trailer first, to make sure.
Scene 1: Lourenço (Marco Pigossi) runs onto a deserted beach, takes off his clothes, and runs into the ocean. Then, clothed again, he sits on the deserted boardwalk, then stares into space, depressed.
Left: Lourenço as a tiny speck in the vast ocean. The insignificance of human life...
Scene 3: He sits despondent on the boardwalk agin, then meets a cute guy, Maurice (James Bland). No one has been named Maurice since Samantha's father on "Bewitched." It must be a homage to the early gay novel by E.M. Forster.
They splash about on the beach, then sit down with a lady whose boobs are hanging out.
Lady: "So you're Brazilian. What do you do?"
"I clean houses."
Montage of our boy cleaning houses. This is portrayed as the ultimate in humiliation.
Left: more beach bunnies. Seriously, what is there to be depressed about?
Scene 4: Establishing shot of Provincetown, as Lourenço explains that he's here on a tourist visa, so technically he can't work, but he has to, because he needs the money...
The older guy tells him, "You're young and handsome. You can do anything."
Scene 5: Lourenço and Mauricio head to the bedroom and kiss (that's all we see in the trailer). A review gushes: "Sexy, sad, and just the ticket."
More after the break