THE THIRD ONE (@InsideOutTO Review)

THE THIRD ONE (El Tercero)

Starring Carlos Echevarria, Emiliano Dionisi and Nicolas Armengol

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this but today’s dating scene is a bit of a confused mess. We have a plethora of options that are meant to bring us closer that really only serve to make intimacy far more complicated than it already is. And even if you do manage to get past all the games and walls that serve as constant obstacles in the pursuit of love, and you actually find someone to spend your life with, it would seem as though it is only a matter of time until these romantic relationships are opened back up to the public again. THE THIRD ONE (EL TERCERO) captures this perfectly but given how empty and hollow all of this has become, I’m not sure getting it right makes for a very fulfilling film experience.

For the first fifteen minutes of the film, we watch as young Fede chats online with an older couple, literally. All writer/director gives us to look at is a messenger box on a black screen with cameras pointed at the subjects while they go through the motions of meaningless flirting and tantalizing displays. Fede agrees to come to dinner at their home, because he’s bored of course, and he looks genuinely petrified. Once there, the threesome embark on an evening of delayed gratification, as they sit through an awkward dinner and get used to each other, or as they basically get more drunk and therefore naturally more aroused by the possibilities in store for the rest of their night.

It isn’t that THE THIRD ONE isn’t accurate. I’ve no doubt that this exact evening has happened a number of times already for a great number of people. As a film though, Guerrero’s bare bones style (if you can call a 25-minute dinner scene where the camera spends half of it on one side of the table and half on the other, a style) only serves to remind us that we are just killing time until everyone gets naked, rendering everything that comes before it to mere filler.

@InsideOutTO Screening

05.25, 9:45 PM, TIFF Bell Lightbox

Click here for tickets and more information.

Your turn!

How many sheep would you give The Third One?

[kkstarratings]