Socrates review – homelessness and homophobia in São Paulo

Brazilian-American film-maker Alexandre Moratto makes a bold feature debut with Socrates, a very personal, good-looking film resourcefully made on a micro-budget with the help of an LGBT charity in Brazil – and produced by the Iranian film-maker Ramin Bahrani.

Christian Malheiros plays Socrates, a gay teenager in São Paulo who becomes homeless when his mother dies. (Moratto puts this agonising moment, almost worthy of a Victorian melodrama, at the top of the film.) It leaves him desperate to pay the rent, desperate to find a job and desperate to find his way in the world. And the death of his mum creates a situation in which he can’t avoid dealing with his bitter, vengeful and homophobic dad, who has the legal right to his mother’s ashes.

Socrates is quite alone in the world and even a man he hooks up with (played by Tales Ordakji) turns out to be far from reliable. Socrates is heartbreakingly keen to earn his keep and pay his way, and some of the most successful scenes are those in which he simply visits the shops and businesses of São Paulo looking for work, earnestly handing out his “résumé”, although there is not much to put on that document. What Socrates has to offer is honesty, industriousness and thoughtfulness. Someone asks kindly if his name was his mother’s idea or his father’s – it was his mother’s, of course.

Running at just 71 minutes, Socrates left me wondering if it was slightly underdeveloped as a feature project. But plenty of glossier and more finished films don’t have its beating compassionate heart.