User Reviews

"Come as You Are" is an all too rare example of a film featuring physical disability that actually succeeds. Let's face it. Which of us would normally expect to be entertained by the spectacle of three young men, a paraplegic, one with hardly any vision and one semi-paralysed as a result of terminal cancer, struggling to go on a holiday sex adventure? I have to admit that on reading the blurb in the Radio Times I thought this could not possibly work. It sounded like some sort of "Inbetweeners" effort in the worst possible taste. However as it was taking up time in a BBC World Cinema slot I felt duty bound to give it a "ten minute" test particularly as too little attention is given to foreign movies by our TV companies. That the film grabbed immediately and survived those initial scenes I can only attribute to the likability of its characters. Admittedly Philip the paraplegic, the mouthy one of the three, needed getting used to, but his companions, Lars and Jozef, had those endearing features that make for good company on a long journey. But even Philip was to reveal a more sympathetic side towards the end. I suppose in a way it worked because it was a comedy that skilfully sidestepped the mawkish, with each scene however embarrassingly uncomfortable for the characters at the time - the hotel bedroom scene where a key is mislaid or the misadventure where Jozef accidentally rolls down an embankment into a lake - tending to come right so that the overall feel-good factor was never quite dissipated. Claude, the lads' overweight female chauffeur holds the whole thing together beautifully. She develops a bond with her charges as we do with both them and her. In the end their sexual fulfilment is what matters all round. Admittedly the scene where death finally catches up with Lars is terribly sad but somehow it speaks for the honesty of a film that faces up to the fact that life is a balancing act of laughter and tears for most of us.

HASTA LA VISTA's subject-matter is a familiar one: three teenagers decide to go to Spain to lose their virginity and hire a mini-bus to do so. When they eventually get there, they find the experience not quite what they anticipated. The major difference between Geoffrey Enthoven's film and other examples of the genre is that the three protagonists (Robrecht Vanden Thoren, Tom Audenaert, and Kimke Desart) and all disabled: one of them is paralyzed from the neck downwards and confined to a wheelchair; another is blind; while the third suffers from terminal cancer and is also confined to a wheelchair.

The film is as much about how the protagonists negotiate their disabilities as the road-trip itself. All of them are heavily dependent on their parents; but for this road-trip only, they decide to branch out on their own. They engage the services of a taciturn bus-driver-cum-nurse (Isabelle de Hertogh) who appears to resent their presence, even while looking after them. As the trip unfolds, however, so she loosens up; and eventually becomes their protector, even though she has a shady past.

The film has some sentimental, not to say implausible elements; given the parents' concern for their siblings' welfare, it seems highly unlikely that they would permit the ambitious road-trip to go ahead, especially when they eventually catch up with their offspring at an anonymous gray concrete hotel. The ending is also a little predictable, as one of the three protagonists, after having achieved his dream of losing his virginity, passes away, DEATH IN VENICE- style in his wheelchair by the sea. Nonetheless there are some highly humorous moments along the way, no more so than when the three friends try to manage for themselves in a hotel room without the nurse's help, and end up spending an uncomfortable night together.

HASTA LA VISTA contains some remarkable performances by the protagonists, who refuse to let their disabilities get them down; like most teenagers, they are alternately irritating, attractive yet lovable. When they eventually get to the specially appointed brothel, catering especially for disabled clients, their reactions are definitely worth remembering.

Three handicapped buddies in their twenties, beset by circumstances set out to go on a road trip after they convince their parents the trip is a wine tour they have their hearts set on, when in fact they are out for their first sexual experience; to be more precise they vow to lose their virginity. Now I immediately thought this was going to be the basis for a mishmash of clichés. Boy was I wrong; well, there are a few inevitable clichés, but that'll be the least of the things you'll remember.

This Belgium production won the Audience award at the European Film awards, Best Feature Film at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival and at the Montreal Film Festival it won both the Grand Prix des Amériques and the most popular film. Being from Montreal, how could I not write a review about it. I was completely surprised by the film, expecting some sort of comedy; it is not a comedy.

I knew none of the actors or the director, but by the end of the movie and knowing then that the three key characters are not handicapped, you can't but say 'Wow, what talent', as their performances are so damned credible. The trio is made up of a quadriplegic, a blind guy and a paraplegic who has some other terminal disease. They share the same healthy lust for women as any healthy fully functional man their age, but have a life perspective only people in their situation can understand; that makes them close friends. It's that friendship and how the three cope and struggle with life, how they bond and how they care for and help each other, much like second nature, that the movie manages to capitalize on in a big way. The audience, you, will start seeing life from their perspective, you'll get their humour and their frustration, how some seemingly insignificant things to you and I are so wondrous to them when they experience the road trip.

Much of that has to do with the nurse/chauffeur, Claude, the trio had to hire for their road trip. Isabelle de Hertogh plays that nurse/chauffeur, savior; she has a back-story as well and were it not for de Hertogh, the movie would not work as well as it does.

I don't wish to spoil much more of the movie for those who will be interested in seeing it, but I'll add that the resort they had longed to reach is one that caters to people like them but could very well be any other classy sex resort or very fancy brothel in southern Spain, or other parts of the world I could site (and describe). In life, there is drama, meaning highs and lows, and this movie takes you there. This movie is what many will call a gem; I do.