On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.
Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.
The Pitch: Sad Puppy-Seeing Soccer Himbo Seeks Refugee Son
For lovers of soccer and movies about hot guys being dumb, it’s been the highest of highs and the lowest of lows lately.
“Barbie” became a bona fide cultural phenomenon by giving us something we never knew we needed: Ryan Gosling running around as a sexy Beach professional who does a shockingly decent Rob Thomas impression despite having nothing going on behind his eyes. The performance was a reminder that men are just as capable of playing the ditzy sidekick as women are — and instantly took its place alongside Brad Pitt in “Burn After Reading” in the pantheon of great himbo cinema.
“This is so rad,” you might have said to yourself as a himbo/soccer fan walking out of your Barbenheimer double feature. “With the high I’m riding right now, it feels like there’s no way anything bad could possibly happen to anyone for the rest of this summer.”
Unfortunately, the FIFA Women’s World Cup didn’t quite go the way fans of the U.S. Women’s National Team were hoping it would. Despite a stacked roster that brought back several of the biggest stars from the unprecedented run we’ve enjoyed over the past decade, the team was eliminated in the Round of 16 after a depressing tie with Sweden. (Elimination after a 0-0 tie… what a sport!)
If you still have the soccer bug but need a fun movie to drown your sorrows (and can’t bear the shame of your local theater staff seeing you at another “Barbie” screening), look no further than “Diamantino.” The Portuguese soccer comedy from Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt was a hit on the festival circuit in 2018 — as any movie that combined soccer, giant puppies, romances that come really close to being incest without being incest, inadvertently racist sword-and-sandal commercials, and identical twin femme fatales inevitably would.
“Diamantino” is an unclassifiable comic fantasy told through the eyes of its eponymous hero: a world-renowned footballer as dumb as he is handsome. After missing a disastrous goal in the World Cup, the titular Diamantino tries to find new meaning in life by adopting a refugee child. What he doesn’t realize is that he’s being used as a pawn by virtually everyone in his life (and several people not in his life) — including his grifting sisters, his new son, and a radical nationalist fringe group trying to turn him into a MAGA-style leader without his knowledge. Fun stuff!
I’ll shut up now, because “Diamantino” is the kind of movie you want to know as little as possible about before you start watching — and believe it or not, I really didn’t get to much of the weird stuff. I just hope the film reminds everyone that himbos truly are the backbone of our society — no matter who you support in the World Cup. —CZ
The Aftermath: And the Hot Pansexuals Lived Happily Ever After
Last Sunday, I woke up in the middle of the night. Bleary-eyed, I rolled over in bed, silenced my alarm, scrolled through dozens of Whatsapp messages, and came to a brutal conclusion: I am simply not gay enough to watch the World Cup at 2 a.m.
For this reason, I can’t say I needed much comfort in the wake of the aforementioned U.S. Women’s loss. (They can….simply play again next year, no?) But I am enough of a cinephile to say with confidence that I’d watch the world-class queer “Diamantino” at any conceivable hour or level of discomfort. Smack me in the jaw and stick a sword through my spinal cord: I will make a rewatch of the fluffy puppy, adopted “fugee,” pansexual romance, propaganda crime thriller work for me.
Caught somewhere between “She’s the Man,” “Titane,” “The Fly,” “Body Snatchers,” and “Benedetta,” this 2018 Cannes hit was entirely unknown to me before this week — but may very well be the first men’s sports movie I have genuinely enjoyed. Maybe it was the celestial oases blooming from the center of that Russian soccer stadium. Maybe it was the cutting satire of the European Union’s ongoing identity crisis juxtaposed with all those powdery-pink doggos. Maybe it was not being asked to take a man named “Rudy” or his “feelings” about “Notre Dame” seriously. Whatever it was, Tino had me rooting for him (and Mittens!) every step of the way.
There’s a heartbreaking, Zac Efron’s “Down to Earth”-esque sweetness in seeing this sexy soccer idiot become so overwhelmed by the suffering of a refugee mother that he throws the World Cup. Tino’s empathy could come across as savior-like or saccharine, but his privileged stupidity is well and quickly cut by the torments of his vile, matchy-matchy sisters and the surveillance agent lesbians taking advantage of his downfall. Toss in the (very hot!) Dr. Lamborghini and her clone-spiracy with the Minister (also hot!), and it’s easy to find yourself handwaving any resentment you could feel towards a man who tucks his adopted child into bedsheets bearing his own face.
Exiting a midnight screening of “Diamantino,” I imagine you’d hear two debates with some frequency. First, what “are” the puppies? To Tino, I imagine he sees them as extensions of the safe, good feelings he gets from playing soccer when he’s truly enjoying it. They’re kind of a four-legged visual take on the “Ted Lasso” “Football is life!” catchphrase that I think Tino knows he doesn’t really see, but that conceptually frames how he feels when he’s “in flow” during a game. To the audience, I interpret them as being representative of the safety Tino found in soccer: an all-consuming activity that ironically doubled as a space away from masculine pressures but came crumbling down when he lost that game. When Tino says goodbye to the puppies at the end of the movie, he’s really saying he’s found safety in living his life authentically with Aisha and without soccer.
And therein lies the second debate I think you’d hear: how should we feel about the former soccer superstar and his brand-new boobies running away with someone else’s girlfriend? To this I say, two things. First, if you play stupid games, then you win stupid prizes; don’t let your girlfriend pretend to be an orphan boy named Rahim, have her move in with a beefed-up millionaire, and then be surprised if she goes all Twelfth Night on your ass. Second, to quote Tino’s late dad, “Love has reason that even reason cannot understand.” Reader, go back and rewatch the Donna Lewis “I Love You Always Forever” sequence knowing Diamant-isha is imminent. I’m telling you, the Nutella waffles and Bongo Juice just hit different when you know they end up fucking. What a winner. —AF
Those brave enough to join in on the fun can stream “Diamantino” on Prime Video or rent it on Apple TV. IndieWire After Dark publishes midnight movie recommendations at 11:59pm ET every Friday. Read more of our deranged suggestions…
