Queerguru’s Riz Fatah reviews ‘A FEW FEET AWAY’ that takes a look at modern dating culture

Scroll, scroll, scroll, swipe, swipe, swipe. Twenty-year-old attractive Buenos Aires resident Santiago (Max Suen) has a fondness for queer hook-up apps that are bordering on addiction. Day after day, and night after night, ‘Seth’ scrolls and chats away online, hooking up with men as often as possible. The apps capture his full attention, even when the real world around him offers more opportunities for hookups than his phone. He even phones in sick to work to spend more time on the apps and when at work spends time in the office toilets scrolling and swiping. He’s pretty popular online and meets a string of sexy men during the couple of days that we follow him. In real life, however, he’s rather a lone wolf, and not as fluent or confident as he is online, conveying an awkward body language, and he abandons most of his hook-ups abruptly before sex without explanation. To the men he meets, he’s variously a law student or an architecture student, rather than the call center operative he actually is. His best friend and co-worker Karen (Jazmin Carballo) is his close confidante but he exaggerates all the tales of his encounters to her to make them sound more interesting. Things reach a head one weekend evening when partying with Karen and simultaneously hooking up test his strength.

A Few Feet Away is directed by Tadeo Pestana Caro and takes a close look at modern dating culture. The ease of using online apps, their addictive nature, their potential to create an unreal world for the user, the risk of loneliness, the chance of meeting very odd people, the line between fantasy and reality, and the danger of ignoring real world opportunities at the expense of potential online rewards are issues many hook-up app users will be familiar with. Although set in Buenos Aires the themes of the film apply to any city in the world.

Caro has created an energetic, sexy, unpredictable film. The night-time hook-up, club and party scenes are authentic and accompanied by a brilliant soundtrack by Balthazar Olivier and Alejandro Rosenblat who throw a lot into the mix including gems from artists as varied as Maluma, Kim Carnes, Midnight Oil and Gilbert O’Sullivan. No judgement is made and the viewer is left to draw their own conclusions as to Santiago’s behaviour. I personally feel the film could have worked better with an older lead character. Then his behaviour would be easier to analyse. At 20-years-old trolling around endlessly online could be seen as a phase or rite of passage, rather than any kind of cause for concern. At 35-years-old, say, or older, it could be more thought-provoking behaviour. Nevertheless, this is an excellent film that builds slowly to reach its climax.

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Queerguru’s Contributing Editor Ris Fatah is a successful fashion/luxury business consultant (when he can be bothered) who divides and wastes his time between London and Ibiza. He is a lover of all things queer, feminist, and human rights in general. @ris.fatah

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