Young bisexual Antonio drifts through life lying, stealing, and using people while feeling incapable of love in writer-director Sacha Amaral’s Buenos Aires-set character study The Pleasure Is Mine.
Stealing and Lies
The Pleasure is Mine
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
In the opening scene Antonio (Max Suen, A Few Feet Away) meets a guy for a hookup before quietly walking around his apartment taking money and little trinkets to put into his pink rucksack.
We repeatedly see someone left naked sleeping on their bed while Antonio creeps around looking for things to steal.
Antonio says he does not feel love and yet people are continually drawn to him and care for him, which he takes no responsibility for.
Throughout the film we hear unanswered voice messages left for Antonio: we come to recognise the voices, ranging from concern to anger.
Saying it gets ‘too intense’ for him, we see him break multiple hearts, from an older man we see devastated in one scene, to Sonia (Sofia Palomino, Murder Me, Monster) who buys drugs from Antonio and has developed quite an attachment.
Antonio continually lies, saying he works as a lawyer or at an architect’s firm, and will use and steal from anyone, even those who help him.
Things go awry when he loses his drug partnership, after he attempts to take control of it for himself, and then his mother Viviana (Katja Alemann, La Sudestada) finds and takes his money leading to an explosive row.
One night Antonio meets an unnamed man in a club, later stealing from him before he is caught. Antonio breaks down and apologises, appearing to be genuine but the sincerity is questionable.
Surprisingly, he is forgiven, and they meet again, the man affectionately calls Antonio ‘little thief’ and lets Antonio look after his flat while he is away.
Soon after Antonio rescues José (José Vicente Orozco, feature debut) from being attacked by two men. José turns out to be a sketchy drifter himself, to whom Antonio says “let’s crash at the guy’s flat” but then won’t leave.
Antonio wants José to go: they gradually bond and he sees himself in José. José gets Antonio involved in a dangerous-looking scheme, which is not fully explored.
Roles are reversed when Antonio is for once left sleeping on the bed while José looks around the flat. After they dance and have sex there is a chance of a new start but Antonio leaves José sleeping and heads on the road looking for a new chapter on his own.
A compelling portrait of a morally deficient and enigmatic character, with a charismatic performance from Suen at the centre, The Pleasure Is Mine is a promising feature debut from writer and director Sacha Amaral.
‘The Pleasure Is Mine’ screened at the 2025 BFI Flare Festival.
