This review was originally created as part of Lesflicks.com‘s coverage of Wicked Queer | Boston’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival 2022.

Sinvergüenzilla in First Kiss opens by confidently putting the ‘universe’ in universal. Our sapphire-coloured sapphic protaganist Sinvergüenzilla (Jessica Zepeda) is introduced to the audience by doing exactly what most of us were forced to during the Covid-19 lockdowns – watching crap television and eating popcorn as she sighs about how much she wants to be kissed right now. Being an alien of action, she beams down to Toronto and proceeds to invite strangers on the street to kiss her. Given that she has landed in the middle of a pandemic, however, she struggles to find anyone to take her up on that generous offer. Meanwhile, across the city, love interest Ezperanza (Camila Diaz-Varela), is being persuaded to leave the house for the first time in 60 days by friends Sam (Lucia Linares) and Lola (Sofia Rodriguez), who worry she’s verging on agoraphobia by staying in the house this much. The pair meet. They lean in. A human woman replaces the alien in her arms.

It’s this exact choice which still has me scratching my head. If she’s a shape-shifting alien adapting to the desires of the woman opposite her? Fine. If she’s a human woman whose alien appearance is symbolic of the pandemic-induced alienation she feels? Poignant. The problem is, for me personally, there is no build up to explain either scenario. The short in fact begins in a spaceship, which again, if it’s a metaphor for a lonely woman physically isolated from the outside world makes a decent amount of sense. And yet…

The performances are great, and as a cosplayer myself I must give full props to the film’s unnamed makeup artist for Sinvergüenzilla’s amazingly streak-free body paint – that stuff is the devil. It’s shot beautifully, and the dialogue’s witty and clever. In retrospect, my problem with this deeply cool-looking space short is that it feels oddly… grounded.