The Last Match

Right from the start, this movie already showed some red flags. Firstly, Reinier is married but resorted to prostitution to earn money for his wife and baby. Secondly, Yosvani living with his girlfriend without love. It's obvious that he's gay but pretending to be straight because, as usual, the society was homophobic and merciless to gay people. Thirdly, it's obvious that this love story between them isn't going to end well. But Yosvani was too dumb to see that and forcing his way to be with Reinier despite his rejection in the end. And last but not least, the movie didn't give the audience a closure. Nothing was explained about their fates. It doesn't matter that the movie was made well and acted very well. If it doesn't have any closure, then it's crappy. That's why I reduced 2 stars from my initial rating. One for giving no closure to the story and another for crappy ending. If you're like me who's looking for a good ending or at least a clear one, don't watch this movie.

I really enjoyed this story. I find it great to watch a gay love story that actually has a plot. And this one has it and quite fast paced.

Cuba is the main protagonist in this show. In ways it reminded me of my childhood days when just getting a candy or a flashy colored t shirt in a flimsy plastic bag was a treasure to me. Unfortunately here we see that this simplicity it's too much on the line of poverty.

It caught my attention how in Cuba a family man can openly be a male prostitute servicing men to provide for his family, role that in any other country is taken only by a woman and with shame.

A tough story but also a beautiful one. Definitely not your average gay themed film, which makes it already worth watching and made me give it an extra star.

Decent story, good acting and well produced ...with no proper ending. Completely fizzles and just ends up being another average film with nothing memorable. Many unanswered questions and simply disappointing.

Being a teenager or young is difficult in all modern societies. And being gay adds some extra speculations and fears. I am gay and I am from Argentina, and in the mid nineties (when I was 25) I was fortunate to travel alone to Cuba on vacations. There, I met a Cuban young man of the same age as me, "by chance" in the streets of La Havana, and I had a little romance with him during my staying in this beautiful and romantic country. Due to this, I could live some of the situations portrayed in the film and I can say in that sense it is rather accurate. In Cuba there is not classical "poverty". They lack of desirable capitalist goods (like electronics or branded shoes, etc) but they are not hungry or without health care, education, etc. And the means to obtain these goods is through the tourists from Europe and Latin America. Well, the weather is hot all the year long, the same as the people doing things outside their houses until very late in the night. And Cubans are very romantic people in general. Well, my "Cuban boyfriend" lived with his family there. And he was openly gay. He (as the one in the film) presented me to his parents and brothers, the second day after we met. Well, the economic situation of the country (little communist island commercially blocked by its neighbor the superpower with the supportive superpower recently disappeared) took us to an uneven relationship (I had the dollars to spend), though not so much because my origin, age, job, etc.. But thanks to him, many things we did were done using "services and fares for Cubans" (not the ones for tourists). My country and specially my city is rather open to gay people, since those years. and I perceived a similar "air" in La Havanna. OK, There was not "gay dance clubs", but we went to dance to ordinary places and we danced together only taking care of not to kiss each other in public but we did it in familiar places. Well, this is my context to evaluate the film from there I feel it was well exposed by the script and director. In this case, both characters are young men, supposedly heterosexual, living and being maintained by their respective girlfriends' family, who fell in love of each other. The end of the film could be in the way it is or being more or less tragic. For me, the value of this movie is to have transporting me back to the Cuba I have known.

Sure, elements of this are maybe reminiscent of other gay titles, but these themes are based on real trends of the gay experience, so it's important to be patient with similarities across films from different cultures, each of which deserve their own nuanced stories told. Reiner and Yosvani's love story is memorable in their acting, the circumstances, and their decisions. Homosexuality is portrayed here not as fully forbidden but in a state of simultaneous acceptance and denial, which makes the story so unique. Both character's female partners and some family members are aware of their male lovers. I think the sad ending falls just short of being necessary based on the plot that leads up to it, but when I went back and rewatched it I felt like it did make sense the way it all played out.