SCREEN | Living Hilariously 'Rent Free' x VQFF 2024

"The plan is simple. We stay out of people's hair and do favours for them if they ask."

Vancouver Queer Film Festival

Rent Free, Austin-based filmmaker Fernando Andrés' lo-fi observational comedy, has the perfect indie movie premise of two twentysomething down-on-their-luck friends (one gay, one straight) couch surfing at various friends' homes for as long as they'll have them to save up money and avoid growing up or transitioning to the next phases of post-college adulthood.

Actors Jacob Roberts (also a producer) and David Treviño co-star said friends, Ben (gay) and Jordan (straight), in a finely-tuned but chaotic balance of both enabling and caring for each other in a nuanced portrait of platonic love between queer/straight male friends. We need to believe they're both believably likeable enough to coax people into letting them crash for a few days but also self-destructive enough to complicate their various situations due to impulse control issues without stretching too much credulity.

There's such a fun appeal to Rent Free as Andrés, Roberts, and Treviño provide plenty of situational comedy about other people's friendships and relationships that reflect on our current generational culture of lack of mobility when it comes to housing. Their film mines so much topical, queer-friendly humour from awkward interactions motivated by the power imbalance of relying on someone else's generosity for a place to stay and the subsequent tension that derives.

Rent Free screens as part of the 2024 Vancouver Queer Film Festival at International Village on September 14th.


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