The King of Wistful Thinking
Years ago, the South Park kids dismissed all art-house movies as being about “gay cowboys eating pudding”. Though Porto contains exactly zero horses and/or desserts, this artsy, meandering puzzlement embodies the pretentiousness that Cartman and the gang so astutely observed.
Set in the titular Portuguese city, co-writer/director Gabe Klinger’s drama stars Anton Yelchin as Jake, an American expatriate who meets French student Mati (Lucie Lucas) on an archaeological dig site. They connect during a night of extreme passion, disconnect in the harsh light of day (thanks, in part, to Mati’s professor/ boyfriend, played by Paulo Calatré), and spend the next decade living in the past.
Klinger and co-writer Larry Gross rely heavily on narrative trickery, bouncing around Jake and Lucie’s timelines and perspectives in an effort to flesh out a love story that’s too weak (and, ultimately, too creepy) to be palatable on its own. Worse yet, Klinger twists Yelchin’s inherent sensitivity as a performer into the alluring mask of an abrasive man-child who decent moviegoers won’t actually want to see succeed. The filmmakers similarly short-change Lucas by giving her character a “crazy” past that is neglected in both the screenplay and the actress’s performance—and which feels designed to make Jake’s character less predatory by contrast.
It doesn’t work.
At seventy-six minutes, Porto might as well be six hours long. No amount of lush, urban European photography or attractive actors engaged in tantric sex* can make up for the gaping story void. Ultimately, Porto may only be remembered as a sad novelty: it contains one of Anton Yelchin’s final performances, and one of his least memorable roles.
*A casualty of Klinger and co-editor Géraldine Mangenot’s sensibilities is that we lose all sense of time and place, especially in the third act. On the plus side, you may just get a belly laugh when realizing that the half-dozen scenes of mind-blowing coitus did not, in fact, take place over multiple evenings. It’s no wonder Jake looks so gaunt, pale, and devoid of fluid ten years on.