Rotting in the Sun: rom-com, farce, mystery, penises, and celebratory gay sex

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome - photos courtesy of Mubi
4 Sep 2023 -

Rotting in the Sun is an uproarious classic farce where a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications escalate. And then escalate even more. Beginning as a gay rom-com - two men meet in a cute life or death near drowning at a gay nude beach, detest each other but are forced to work together - it then veers off into a mystery with the audience privy to the mundane but deadly solution. As the characters flail and frantically try to either solve the mystery, or cover up their involvement, or their fear of perceived involvement, the comedy grows more mordantly hilarious and the satire incisively vicious. Filmmaker Sebastian Silva and his collaborators provide a fun ride of a film—Almodovar-esque on steroids—but with layers and layers of social commentary mixed in with the laughter and suspense. That the proceedings are spiced with abundant full-frontal nudity and explicit sexual acts, just adds to the casual realism that grounds the plot in an extravagantly gay style.

Explicating the plot would provide spoilers, but we begin with filmmaker Sebastian Silva playing a severely depressed version of himself. He reads from pessimistic philosopher Emil Cioran: "Only the optimist commits suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?” The fictional Silva has covered the walls of his rental in an under renovation building (jackhammers provide suspenseful aural punctuation to the soundtrack), with phallocentric graffiti and Cioran-esque morbid aphorisms. With his film career seemingly stalled and the canvas versions of the wall art suddenly, if not from conception, unsellable, Silva blisses out on ketamine as the next best thing to being dead. If not for his faithful dog Chima, and the interference of his continually overlooked housekeeper Vero (Catalina Saavedra) he might very well do himself in. The building owner Mateo (Mateo Riesta), who is also somehow involved in managing Silva's affairs as a friend, suggests that Silva take a weekend of sun, sand and sex on the beach Zicateca.

The nude beach is where Silva meets Jordan Firstman, also playing a version of himself, who is a social media influencer/comedian with vague ambitions and an inflated ego. And who has had a lot of financial success. The plot(s) are set in motion. Firstman is a classic rom-com protagonist in that he is annoying, aggressive, yet somehow endearing and sexually appealing in the manner of the Bills, Eichner and Murray. Firstman the actor has no problem sending up Firstman the character and, to a certain extent, his own public persona. Firstman lives for Instagram hits. His live streamed soliloquies are comic gold as is his obliviousness and viciousness. Rotting in the Sun relentlessly and incisively mocks the culture of social media, showing how deeply shallow it is and the dangers of believing in one's persona. As Firstman's persona unravels and reality intrudes, he becomes less successful. But still more successful than a performance artist friend whose serious and elaborate endeavour is virtually ignored in the pursuit of fashion and followers. Rotting in the Sun does not believe that social media creates art.

Firstman relies on a translation app to communicate with Vero, with predictably futile results. Vero is the turbulent calm at the center of the mystery. Saavedra is stoic and frantic simultaneously until her big moment at the end of the film, where the ferocity of her performance is startling and breathtaking. All the more so because it leads into a brutally bleak but perfectly apt comic, cathartic coitus interruptus. Vero is ignored by the other characters except when she is needed for manual labour. The commentary on classism is driven home with a poisoned spike when Firstman tries to get information from her, using the infernally malfunctioning app, by asking if she feels "exploited." The sequence garners bitter laughter that then pays off with a roar at one of Firstman's sartorial choices. Silva seeds the film with gags, verbal and sight, that pay off outrageously many scenes later. Even Chima gets one of the biggest laughs in the entire film with a throwaway gag that is actually a blunt metaphor more penetrating than the double-headed dildo involved.

The nudity and unsimulated sex in Rotting in the Sun has been getting a lot of attention and it is a great marketing tool. There are, as advertised, many penises on display and Firstman both receives and performs fellatio. As well there are many sex acts that happen on the sidelines and in the background. But none of it is salacious. One expects to see penises at a nude beach, and the moment when Firstman grabs hold of a dangling member as a handshake, perfectly encapsulates that camaraderie that gay men can achieve through casual sex. As Firstman shouts, "You do ketamine, you suck cock. Who cares? You're a gay man." He also warns Silva that "You can't hurt me. Because I'm happy. A happy clown." It is only when Firstman tries on socially accepted feelings, referring prematurely and inaccurately to the missing Silva as his "husband," that his life begins to fall apart. The hedonism or criticism can't hurt him, but the constraints of society and roles certainly can.

The joy of seeing gay men involved in a mystery/farce that doesn't hinge on coming out, guilt or the threat of diseased death cannot be overexaggerated. Mateo makes a point of emphasizing he is straight, and each time it is comedic and mocked. Sexuality is irrelevant but sucking cock is celebrated. Rotting in the Sun also features a broad swath of gay men. No-one is overly groomed—Firstman flaunts a thatch of back hair that is quite sexy—and there is diversity in ethnicity, body shape and cock size, with all treated as appealing (except perhaps for one very large dangler that is an impressive set-up for a gag). Promiscuity does not lead to a downfall or even a reprimand, for Firstman it is actually lucrative. Baring one's body parts is natural, baring one's soul is more complicated, especially when one's soul is a fabrication. The continual drug use is questionable as a moral issue, but it is also one of the central metaphors. The characters casually use ketamine, developed non-recreationally for veterinary use, but pentobarbital, which is posited as a suicide tool, is described as a poison designed for putting down dogs. It is no accident that Silva is continually, affectionately, nicknamed "piggy."

While gay sex is treated as a natural and fun activity, the rocks around the beach and many of the beds are orgiastic joyful places, there is commentary on transactional sex. Firstman tries to seal a deal by enticingly jiggling his junk at a horrified and bemused Silva. When that doesn't work, Firstman instead enjoys a blow job that is just for fun. What is shocking is that Rotting in the Sun can be marketed as shocking for its nudity and sex. Just like the first moments on a nude beach or entering a gay safe space, the first exposed cock gets a reaction, in this case a burst of uneasy laughter. But the response fades to the occasional titter, and then to appreciation of the varieties of the human body and the spectrum of sexuality. It is a charming reality that amplifies the farce and the mystery, making Mateo and Vero's ever increasing efforts more desperate. And Firstman's genial obtuseness even more so. That is the ingenuousness of Rotting in the Sun. The camera work and editing always leave us wanting a closer look, a reveal, but this is a mystery farce, not a sex farce. Silva is here to celebrate gay sex, to laugh with it not at it, while more serious concerns bubble under the surface before exploding.