Article by Greta Maria Sorani

Translation by Martina Bigi

What are we willing to do, and under what conditions are we willing to live, in order to stay true to our nature? This is the question that Ponyboi (2024) – the second feature film by Colombian director and screenwriter Esteban Arango, following Blast Beat (2020) – seems to ask the audience.

Based on the 2019 short film of the same name, written and directed by River Gallo – who also stars as the lead character – Arango’s latest film delves deeper into the existential condition of Ponyboi, an intersex individual forced into prostitution and working for a drug dealer after fleeing an unaccepting family at a young age — an unsympathetic family that had confined them to the role of a heterosexual male. In a sort of dreamlike descent, the audience follows Ponyboi’s intense journey, that culminates on Valentine’s Day when they confront their life choices and their past.

Its glossy cinematography and aesthetic are reminiscent of the visual and existential universe of Sam Levinson’s series Euphoria – with which it shares some hallucinatory atmospheres and bold looks – yet the film’s irregular pace occasionally seems to lose sight of its central narrative. Gallo’s character is often overshadowed by the performances of Dylan O’Brien and Victoria Pedretti – respectively playing Vinny, the drug dealer, and Angel, Ponyboi’s best friend and last hope for salvation. River Gallo, an intersex performer, bravely lays themselves bare in this role, showing to the audience, without rhetoric or clichés, the complex existence of those who live at the intersection of male and female within a binary system.