The movie begins by us meeting Julio and Tenoch, who are two teenage best friends who seem to spend most of their time either having sex with their girlfriends or talking to each other about sex. When their girlfriends decide to spend the summer touring Italy, the two boys realize that their summer vacation will be one of boredom and no sex. While attending a wedding, the friends meet a stunning married woman named Luisa and they start discussing her desire of visiting a beach and the friends make up this story about this great, exotic beach that no one knows about. After receiving a devastating phone call from her husband who is away on a trip, Luisa persuades the boys to take her to this beach and they comply, of course without a clue to where they are going. Then the story begins with the trip in the car to this beach and the adventures which await all three of them.
For American audiences, this film will be a shock to many due to the frankness of the sex scenes, nudity, and sexual talk which permeates the entire film. Especially due to the young ages of the actors. But all of this is real and necessary to the story, not like the dumb gratuitous sex scenes which seem to be shown in most Hollywood films. The two main characters are teenage boys making their plans for college, so their infatuation with sex is real and natural. Another aspect of this film which makes it very interesting is how the director shows the clash of cultures which exist in Mexico. We see two young middle class teenagers living the good life and then all of a sudden the camera takes us to the kitchen of the restaurant they are eating in and we see an entire family making the food to make ends meet.
There is also a lot of humor in this film which seems to fit perfectly with the age and personality of the characters. The adolescent sexual jokes and dialogue are natural and not forced. As the trip unfolds, the two boys and Luisa find things out about themselves and each other which eventually will test their friendships to the limit. The acting here is very good and you care about the characters and what happens to them. The director uses a voice-over narration often in the film and uses a most unique way to do this which makes the audience sit up and pay attention to what is being said. All of a sudden, the voices and sounds heard on the screen will completely stop and all you hear is the voice of the narrator. I've never seen this technique used before and it has a neat effect.
While the film may not be as emotionally powerful as one might expect, it is never the less a very interesting, original and entertaining film.