Bear Cub (Cachorro), directed by Luis Miguel Albaladejo, is about the life of Bernardo (played by David Castillo), whose libertine mother Violeta (Elvira Lindo) decides to go on a two-week tour of India with her second husband. Before leaving, she assigns nine-year-old Bernardo to the care of her brother, Pedro (played by José Luis García-Pérez), a gay dentist in Madrid. She has been rearing Bernardo as if he were growing up gay. At first, Bernardo does not want his mother to leave him, and he objects that she might overstay her visit as she once did after the death of Bernardo's father, her first husband. Pedro, who is attracted mostly to robust, overweight men, known in the gay communist as "bears," likes his nephew but has no clue how to take care of him while continuing his social life as usual. Pedro hires a daytime babysitter who happens to be a stripper, and in the evening tries to shield Bernardo from friends who might flaunt the raw underbelly of gay life. As a result, he stops one friend from smoking pot, and he refrains from cruising and partying. One day, Doña Teresa (played by Empar Ferrer) shows up at Pedro's apartment unannounced; the mother of the boy's deceased father, she wants to claim Bernardo because her husband is dead, and she is living all alone. However, in the past Doña Teresa criticized Violeta, so Bernardo is not eager to spend any time with her. Indeed, Bernardo has grown very much attached to Pedro. Then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informs Pedro that Violeta and her husband have been convicted of drug possession and must be imprisoned for several years. Just as Bernardo and Pedro adjust to the fact that they constitute a family, Doña Teresa employs an attorney and a private detective to wrest control of Bernardo from Pedro. Bernardo, however, does not want to live with anyone but Pedro. When Doña Teresa threatens to expose Pedro's HIV positive status in a court battle, Pedro knows that he is checkmated, as the exposure will surely cause his patients to seek another dentist. Accordingly, Doña Teresa proposes a compromise: Bernardo will go to a boarding school near her residence in Valencia; she hopes that in time Bernardo will change his attitude toward her. With Bernardo gone from his life, however, Pedro becomes so stressed that the HIV virus takes a toll on him, and he is hospitalized. Next, Doña Teresa informs Bernardo that Pedro is in the hospital, implying that he is near death, and she tries to assure Bernardo that she will be happy to take care of him. However, the boarding school experience has given Bernardo some independence, so he tells her that her action has caused the stress, that he and his mother are HIV positive, that he was in actuality taking care of Pedro, and he expresses the hope that his meddling grandmother will die. However, the film does not end there. There is a happy ending after all, but not before filmviewers will draw an important conclusion. The most important insight in the film is that gays need to be afforded the right to form families, care for dependents, and even get married if they so desire. An expansion of the director's 1996 short film, Bear Cub clearly shows that the legal bias for heterosexuality can produce tragic consequences. MH
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