Fei (Kai Ko) works as an illegal hustler, but despite his affairs, he has one true love: Xiaolai (J.C. Lin).  When Xiaolai’s apartment is raided by police, Fei runs away and falls out of contact with Xiaolai as he creates a new life for himself in a new city.  A family emergency finds Fei returning home where he is reunited with Long (Yufan Bai), a strong-willed youth that leaves with Fei back to the city and helps to find some acceptance in himself.  Their relationship, tumultuous at first but then steadying, is once again thrown into chaos when Xiaolai enters back into Fei’s life. 

Moneyboys is the debut feature from writer/director C. B. Yi and found release in the United States through Mubi after a run at Cannes where it was nominated for the Queer Palm among other awards.  Jean-Louis Vialard’s camera captures the neon-soaked club life the boys lead, and the isolation felt during their transactional life with their clients, almost clinical in its harsh lighting and dull colors.  The film also pulls back the curtain on what home life looks like for queer people in Thailand and the difficulty that arises when they must shield their family from their identity.  It is in these moments where Vialard’s often still camera is most effective as he forces the audience to sit in the shame and guilt that is coursing through these poignant and difficult sequences of Fei with his family. 

The film cold opens five years prior to the main story, and we see Fei and Xiaolai’s relationship.  Xiaolai is full of passion as the two make love, cut short by Fei who needs to stay ready for his client later that evening.  Unbeknownst to both of them, and us as well, this is one of the last moments Fei will feel happy as when he returns in the morning, bloodied from an affair that turned violent, Xiaolai will go after the man that did this, but he will not return home from the fray.  Fei leaves the life he had there behind and when the film cuts forward, we see he is still leading a hustling lifestyle but had fallen into a close-knit group of friends who are all transient to varying degrees. 

It is in this dynamic that the film begins to dissect its first major theme, that of family both by blood and by choice.  With his friends, Fei can find some freedom and allowances to be true to himself, something he cannot be when he is with clients and something he certainly cannot be when he is at home.  It is not like this for everyone, however, as Xiangdong (Zach Lu) is getting married to Lulu (Chloe Maayan) who has agreed to the façade because it will also please her parents.  The celebration is messy as more and more alcohol begins to flow and the newlyweds are pressured to kiss in front of everyone.  It is here where Moneyboys takes on a different kind of sadness, one that is just as painful as Fei’s physical loss of Xiaolai, but one that is also incredibly internal.  It is the sadness of having to stomach one’s identity so that they can save face in a society that does not accept them.   

This is further explored when the film begins to place pressure on Fei given the illegality of his line of work.  Fei has to move cautiously, and the film also adopts a very melancholic tone with him when he is at work.  Similar to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Neil in Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin (2004), this is a means to an end for the young man and he plays each encounter with the same businesslike indifference.  There is a sterilized look to the scenes where Fei is working with his clients, the lights are harsh, the rooms are grey, and the movements are mechanical.  Juxtaposed with the sequences where he was intimate with Xiaolai, there is no feeling here.  It is a job. It is a chore. It is all simply a means to an end. 

The end, here, being medical issues back at home for Fei whose grandfather is sick and dying.  There is guilt in his heart for not attending his mother’s funeral and he does not want to repeat that with his grandfather.  While his family accepts the money he makes for selling himself to other men, they do not approve of his line of work or, more broadly, of his homosexuality.  This comes to a head over dinner with family and friends, and again with alcohol flowing freely, words are being said without any filter and Vialard’s camera sits at a short distance, unmoving, as the words pierce not only Fei, but us as well.   

Moneyboys is a bit confusing at times.  The story and the message have merit, but the meandering pacing sometimes loses track of itself, and it is difficult to reorient ourselves in the narrative.  Yi achieves solid performances from the entire cast which is a great benefit, and there was a lot of care and thought put into the crafting of the film even if not everything lands.  An example would be the water motif that is set up at various points in the film: the muddy creeks, the pool, and the lake.  Maybe this is more an issue with visual translation as a Western reading could be somewhat stretched to say it is a baptism into Fei’s three lives, but even if that is the case it is played very loose in the film, but not so loose that it can be seen as accidental. 

In its narrative composition, Moneyboys is akin to Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s Asako I & II (2018) in that it deals with a relationship cut short, but the feeling of what could have been still weighing heavy on the soul.  It is a tragic and classic idea that many a romantic drama explores, and Moneyboys is a solid effort on the front.  Thematically, it also seeks to understand the effect that calcifying one’s identity to fit into societal norms and familial expectations can have on a person.  It is again, a topic rife for exploration, as half the world away in Guatemala, Jayro Bustamante examines this same theme in his film Temblores (2019). 

Yi’s first feature is a strong mix of many of the elements of the stories that came before it, and while its ambition is greater than the practicality of what Yi and the crew were able to achieve, there is a creative heart and soul behind the narrative that with a little refinement will be able to shine through greater and greater with each subsequent work.  Yi is a storyteller and if this first work is any indication, he has a deep fascination with the human desire to love and be loved.  With clear inclinations behind the camera and on the page, he is a rising talent whose career has started very promisingly, and we can hope to see more from him as he continues to assemble a team of creatives around him.