"Hawaii" can be called a gay interest movie but calling it that, is doing a disservice to this little gem of a film

The story starts with, Martin who falls on hard times and is more or less destitute. He looks for work in a neighborhood he used to frequent in his childhood as a handyman. He comes across Eugenio, a childhood friend who is currently occupying his uncle’s derelict property (later we come to know it’s also Eugenio’s childhood home) for the summer.

While this premise sets the scene for vast amounts of sexual tension and scenes of two young twenty somethings getting sweaty in and around a charming but crumbling Argentinian home it also offers it’s audience a chance to reflect on the excitement of attraction, the pure laze and welcomed melancholy of long summer days, how nostalgia colors our need to be closer to someone from our past and how innocence in it’s purest form is something that needs to be celebrated.

The initial scenes of Martin’s destitute life, are truly heart wrenching. Everything is shown subtly, there are no emotionally manipulative scenes here, no internal sorrow ridden monologues and no tears, despite the lack of all these tried and tested cinematic devices, the brilliant screenplay alone draws you in and makes you feel for Martin. It was hard to watch Martin take showers from public taps, and store the money he is given for his work as a handy man in a rusty tin he hides away in a patch of empty land in a suburb he calls his “home”. Acts of kindness shown to him are shot in a simple, uncomplicated fashion and as these scenes warm your heart they equally make you feel perturbed at how poverty isn’t just a concept attributed to slum dwellers in a third world country it’s just there… all around us… and this should seem like the most obvious thing in the world to most of us but how many of us really think about how some families, and individuals are just one less pay cheque away from living on the streets. While poverty is not a central theme to this film it sure colors Martin’s personality and influences how Eugenio sees Martin.