El Chico del 98
2021 · 14m · España
Directed by Rubén Sánchez
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, LGBTQ+
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tense
A young footballer who barely communicates with his girlfriend and trains under an abusive coach struggles with his daily routine and his refusal to accept his own sexuality.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The setup reads like every coming-of-age sports drama ever made, but Sánchez gets weird with it—the refusal to make this *about* the sexuality revelation, keeping it instead as background static to a guy just trying to exist, is genuinely perverse in the best way.
A formally restrained meditation on masculine performance and silence that situates itself clearly in the lineage of Kechiche and Sciamma; the editing rhythm between training sequences and intimate moments shows real control and a filmmaker thinking through the grammar of suppression.
The entire film hinges on how Sánchez uses the coach's voice—never fully present, always undermining—as a way to externalize the protagonist's internal fragmentation without spelling it out; that single sonic choice does the heavy lifting that lesser hands would need a monologue to accomplish.