A winsome black comedy with more than a whiff of Almodóvar about it.
The titular town is the Chueca, Madrid’s fabulous gay district. But it’s not quite fabulous enough for urbane estate agent Victor, who’s ousting the area’s elderly widows so that homo hipness and metrosexual minimalism can rule. And if a fat cheque doesn’t persuade them, he’ll put the squeeze on the old dears in a shockingly literal way. Scuppering his plans, though, are lovable, blue-collar bear couple Rey and Leo, who, having inherited the apartment next door from one of Victor’s victims, unwittingly move Rey’s battleaxe of a mother right into the fray.
With its cast of swarthy men and strident women, this winsome black comedy has more than a whiff of Almodóvar about it. But more accurately it’s a neat satire on the tyranny of gentrification, personified by the affluent, label-loving and gym-sculpted Victor. There no room in his world for the superannuated, or even the great unwaxed, like Rey and Leo. Yet in spite of Victor’s scheming, and Rey’s mother’s attempts to split them up, these bears refuse to be cowed - and remind us all that ‘homo’ isn’t short for homogeneity.