Their Coming of Age Isn’t All Fun for ‘Nico and Dani’

“Nico and Dani,” winner of the Prix de Jeunesse (Youth Award) at Cannes last year, is an exceptional coming-of-age film--subtle, humorous, compassionate, acutely perceptive--and so adroit an adaptation of a play that you would never guess it hadn’t been written directly for the screen. Its two young stars, Fernando Ramallo and Jordi Vilches, are impressive, as is the entire cast.

“Nico and Dani” is only director Cesc Gay’s second film, but clearly he is on his way to becoming one of Spain’s key filmmakers.

The movie is set in an upscale resort town on the Mediterranean coast. The parents of 16-year-old Dani (Ramallo) have taken off, knowing that their son’s best friend and schoolmate Nico (Vilches) is on his way to keep him company in their posh beach house while they’re gone.

Not that Dani is exactly lacking for attention. On hand is the family’s amiable cook (the ever sultry Myriam Mezieres) and Dani’s tutor in English, Sonia (Ana Gracia), who takes a personal interest in him and his desire to become a writer. Indeed, Dani is already at work on a novel and is headed for university. (His father is a professor of some distinction and also of some wealth.) In contrast, Nico intends to bypass college to become a mechanic.

Dani is looking forward to going fishing and camping with his friend, but Nico’s priorities swiftly change when the two encounter the stunning Elena (Marieta Orozco), who does not hide her disappointment that Dani has been in town for two weeks without looking her up. The confident Elena has a terrific impact on Nico, and she has in tow a pretty, shy younger cousin, Berta (Esther Nubiola), who would seem to be a good match with Dani, considerably less forward than his friend.

This film from the Jordi Sanchez play “Krampack,” however, is about the often painful discovery of the differences between appearance and reality that everyone experiences in the process of growing up. Nico and Dani, virgins both, have been helping each other with sexual release. For Nico, it’s simply a matter of convenience, but Dani is developing an emotional attachment for Nico that goes beyond friendship and sex and soon becomes difficult for him to deny.

In short, Dani is discovering that he is gay, and the overriding question is how it will affect his friendship with Nico. At the same time Nico is developing feelings for Elena that may not be returned in kind, even though she enjoys sex with him.

Nico and Dani have both reached a crucial moment of transition in their lives with little warning and even less sense of how well they will manage their rites of passage. At least they don’t exist in a vacuum, and Sonia is sympathetic to Dani as is her friend Julian (Chisco Amado), a writer and former pupil of Dani’s father.

Throughout the film, Gay demonstrates an intuitive sense of how best to tell the friends’ story--how to set up a scene and play it for greatest effect--yet also how to keep it moving briskly with a quality of effortlessness. Gay is surely indebted to his cinematographer, Andreu Rebe^s, in giving his picture the sense that the camera is always in the right place at the right time, missing nothing and moving in the most expressive manner possible.

In the European tradition, “Nico and Dani” has more sexual candor than most American movies dealing with coming of age but also has more sensitivity and deftness than Hollywood films generally do. “Nico and Dani” is a very adult movie about what it’s like to finally grow up.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: some language, adult themes, nudity and some fairly explicit sex.

‘Nico and Dani’

(‘Krampack’)

Fernando Ramallo: Dani

Jordi Vilches: Nico

Marieta Orozco: Elena

Esther Nubiola: Berta

An Avatar Films release of a Messidor Films production. Director Cesc Gay. Producers Marta Esteben, Gerardo Herrero. Screenplay by Cesc Gay and Tomas Aragay; based on the play “Krampack” by Jordi Sanchez. Cinematographer Andreu Rebe^s. Editor Frank Gutierrez. Music Riqui Sabates, Joan Diaz, Jordi Prats. Production designer Llorenc Miquels. In Spanish, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.

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