A sparse but intimate drama about an eccentric immigrant left adrift, director Marco Calvani’s “High Tide” boasts impeccable lead performances, which bolster the film even at its weakest. Pulled together by sweet moments, it follows Brazilian immigrant Lourenço (Marco Pigosi) as he anticipates the return of his American mistress to Provincetown — the promised gay land of Massachusetts — while time runs out on his visa. As Lourenço is torn apart by kindness and cruelty, Pigossi delivers a stunning performance that welds the film’s disparate parts together with heat, making it seem whole despite the flaws in its construction.
From the first moment of “High Tide,” Calvani captures his audience’s attention through the contrast between the gentle waves lapping the shore and the stark image of Lourenço stripping off his clothes and rushing into the ocean in a moment of emotional crisis. This scene returns later in the film, supported by more narrative context, but dangling it in front of the viewer in this way conjures images of illegal immigrants desperately heading to the water in search of refuge.
Lourenço is not exactly a refugee, nor is he “undocumented” in the literal sense (although the term has been used to describe him several times). In fact, his tourist visa is about to expire, and the path to remaining in the United States legally is winding and fraught with long obstacles, despite his specialized degree in accounting. So, while waiting for his beloved Jo to return – the true circumstances between the pair are initially left ambiguous – he takes on odd jobs under the table cleaning and painting rich people’s summer houses, while living in a small guest house on one of the houses. Joe’s friend, the suave, chatty and sometimes arrogant Scott (Bill Irwin), an older gay man who becomes his temporary announcer.
While waiting for Joe, Lourenco eventually meets Maurice (James Bland), an attractive, soft-spoken black doctor from Queens on his way to a residency at Angola. Despite being another fixture in Lourenço’s life, Maurice provides him with a spark brief enough to begin reconsidering his seemingly harsh circumstances—or rather, begin to see them in a new light. Their dynamic is cute, if often over-written, especially when Calvani tries to incorporate distorted critiques of white queerness into his remit.
Whether memories of racial animus or confessions of desire, the spoken words that weigh heavily on Pigosi and Bland echo high school amateur theater productions. However, it is performed with sincerity and innocence at every turn. Pigossi is particularly adept at taking these functional first lines of dialogue and imbuing them with longing. He carries a deep amount of uncertainty behind his eyes, but also an emotional soul, which he turns into a performance that’s both beautiful and devastating (even when the film around him often veers toward the banal and the familiar).
Executive producer Marisa Tomei and “Tangerine” star Mia Taylor appear in minor supporting roles, allowing both women, despite their brevity, to provide a meaningful, lively contrast to Pigosi’s aloofness. But ultimately, what allows “High Tide” to work in spite of itself is a liberating sense of vulnerability. Courtesy of cinematographer Oscar Ignacio Jiménez, tight close-ups of locked eyes, smiling mouths, bare stretch marks, and feet wrapped around the lovers’ waists combine to create a pattern of hypnotic cinematic intimacy, which the film frequently engages in for long stretches.
Aside from the overwhelming uncertainty surrounding Lourenço’s visa dilemma, few of the film’s socially distant themes find themselves aestheticized or theatrical with much subtlety. However, Pigosi takes this idea of impermanence and turns it so masterfully into a sense of instability—of quicksand beneath one’s feet—that it twists the film around itself, making it seem unpredictable even as familiar romantic beats and gestures appear on screen. . It’s a brilliant, heartfelt performance that not only makes “High Tide” interesting, but also feels lively at times.