REVIEW: DVD Release: Plan B

Film: Plan B
Release date: 13th September 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 103 mins
Director: Marco Berger
Starring: Manuel Vignau, Lucas Ferraro, Mercedes Quinteros, Damián Canduci, Ana Lucia Antony
Genre: Comedy/Drama/Romance
Studio: Network
Format: DVD
Country: Argentina

Exploring similar themes to Y Tu Mamá También and the more recent Undertow in portraying less than platonic impulses lurking behind bonds formed in seemingly heterosexual relationships, Plan B is the debut film from Argentinean director Marco Berger. Another movie that reveals the machismo of Latin America as being not quite as clear cut as you might think.

The story is set in modern day Buenos Aires, where twenty-something Bruno has just been dumped by his girlfriend Laura. Although she continues to sleep with him behind the back of her new boyfriend Pablo, she makes it clear that there can be no future between her and Bruno.

Undeterred, Bruno determines to win her back, proceeding to befriend the unwitting Pablo with the intention of undermining the newfound couple’s relationship. While it is not exactly clear what his initial plan entails, rumours of Pablo’s alleged bisexual past lead to the possibility of a plan B arising in Bruno’s mind, one in which he will covertly seduce his new rival.

Soon, however, the two men begin to develop a genuine friendship, but their bond becomes complicated not only by Bruno’s machinations, but also by a growing affection that runs deeper than either man realises.

After a confused Pablo breaks up with Laura, Bruno finds he’s only partly got what he truly wants...


It says something about the no man’s land Berger’s picture occupies, in terms of genre, that Plan B is being marketed somewhat misleadingly as a comedy. Despite the light farce suggested by the film’s plot, it’s actually short on outright laughs. It can only really be considered a comedy in the classical sense of moving from confusion to a happy resolution (reflected in its almost Shakespearean plot), and in the irony of our being in on the fact that these seemingly heterosexual men are developing feelings for each other long before they realise it themselves.

Instead, it features characteristics more often associated with art house cinema - from its languorous pace through to its focus on character and inner emotion. But just as it’s probably too unconventional to appeal to a mainstream audience, it also lacks the edge usually required by the art house set. Frankly, it contains more phallic imagery than any film needs, and some of its symbolism can be similarly obvious (Bruno and Pablo initially bond over a shared love for a Lost-style TV programme called Blind – presumably representing the blindness of love, and the blindness of the men to their true natures).

On the whole, though, it can’t be accused of pretension, only of being slightly dull in places. The main focus is realism, and the director’s dedication to it, for better or worse, is such that Plan B often feels like watching a relationship develop in real-time. It is stretched at least 15 minutes too long, dragging considerably throughout the midway point, and it’s not helped by being shot through a digital camera that gives Buenos Aires a washed out, drab look that resembling a student film.

Saving the picture from tedium are the soulful performances of its two leads, Manuel Vignau as Bruno and Lucas Ferraro as Pablo. At first, they’re not especially likeable or interesting – Bruno appears boorish and arrogant, Pablo somewhat vapid – but Berger gently coaxes out layers of personality in a process that mirrors the experience of the two men as they get to know one another. Their burgeoning relationship is quite a chaste and sweet one, and the film’s depiction of first love (being a gay relationship it falls under this category for the two men) is one that everyone can relate to in all its awkwardness and tentativeness. It’s this aspect that backs up Berger’s assertion that this is not a ‘gay’ love story, but simply a love story, one transcending sexual orientation.

That story is played out almost entirely in either Bruno’s or Pablo’s apartment. At first, you could take the strangely insular world of the film, interspersed with shots of the surrounding tall buildings of Buenos Aires, as representing the characters hemmed in by a South American society yet to come to terms with modern sexual mores. However, Argentina is one of the most liberal countries in Latin America, recently legalising gay marriage (including full adoption rights), and a country where same-sex sexual activity has been legal since 1887. In light of this, its insularity appears more to reflect the self-enclosed world that seems to exist between two people at the start of a relationship. The way that world is brought to life is probably the film’s greatest achievement.

The characters’ casual acceptance of homosexuality is the most interesting aspect of Plan B, accounting also for a great deal of the strength and the weakness of the movie. While refreshing to see a film dealing with gay relationships unhampered by histrionics, or a sense of its own self-importance, it also means there’s little in the way of tension or external conflict. The success of the picture ultimately depends on how much you have emotionally invested in the two men overcoming their insecurities and eventually getting it on.

At times, the film does become as confused and as muddled as its central conceit. It is difficult to gauge just what Bruno initially plans on or hopes to achieve. Laura clearly doesn’t attach much importance to fidelity, nor does she presumably have a problem with having a bisexual boyfriend. Even when Bruno learns that Pablo never had a bisexual past (it was just something Pablo said because he was curious about the idea), he continues with his ‘plan B’. Laura herself cuts a pretty marginalised figure throughout, and though she’s not the most sympathetic of characters, we are left to reflect on her misfortune in falling for not one but two gay men in quick succession.

Perhaps the only genuine misstep is the scene where Bruno’s friend puts it to him that he might be sexually attracted to Pablo. Bruno rushes to the toilet and is then violently sick. They’ve kissed twice (once on a drunken dare at a party, the second time when Bruno claims he needs to practice kissing a man for an upcoming audition), shared the same bed several times, spent an inordinate amount of time hanging out in just their underpants: it seems strange that the possibility of having sexual feelings for Pablo has never entered Bruno’s mind.

That said, for all its faults, Plan B is a hard film to dislike. Not being your typical Hollywood rom-com, it’s always up in the air whether the two leads will get their happy ending. It has a flawed charm in keeping with its two scruffy protagonists, and it would be a hard heart indeed that isn’t even slightly moved by the end of Berger’s movie.


In the evocative way it brings to life the beginnings of a relationship, and all the helpless, butterflies-in-the-stomach feelings that come with it, Plan B succeeds, but in terms of producing enthralling cinema, it’s less effective. Only partly successful then, but Berger’s film still contains enough moments of promise to suggest its director may go on to even better things. GJK