Nico and Dani

It's hard to buy the nonchalance of the homosexual experimentation that takes place between two teenage best friends in this Spanish coming-of-age fable. The problem has nothing to do with the performances of Jordi Vilches and Fernando Ramallo, the two brilliantly ingenuous young actors in the title roles, nor with the circumstances of the initiation of their libidos--they're 17-year-old boys with time on their hands and partners (initially girls) at their disposal. But when they start...er...manually pleasuring each other, completely out of the blue, the viewer gets mentally yanked right out of the story while mentally rewinding to figure out what signals were missed indicating these kids were so free with one another. Outside of these scenes, however, Nico and Dani is largely a spot-on portrait of homosexual and heterosexual awakening, with writer-director Cesc Gay clearly remembering well what it's like to be at that age when hormones are raging and sexuality is hopelessly confusing. A strong, optional purchase. (R. Blackwelder)