Ahh, summer:    Dani, Nico, Girls, and Beer

Every once in a while, I come across a movie that's so perfect that I don't feel like writing anything about it other than "Go see it." To intrude between screen and audience and weigh in with commentary seems wrongheaded. So I'd much prefer to just shut up and let you go see "Nico and Dani" for yourself. The movie's charm is its lightness, and writing about it is like trying to catch a butterfly with a baseball bat.

But I'm afraid that a one-line appeal might not be enough to compel anybody to see this Spanish coming-of-age story, so I'll squander some bandwidth and tell you why you should.

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Related Resources • Spanish Film • Gay & Lesbian Film

From Other Guides • Spanish Culture • Krampack Avant-Premiere in Madrid • Gay & Lesbian Issues

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Against ocean sunsets and the Spanish landscape, we watch these pimpled adolescents come to grips with what they want, and what they can get. They buy condoms, they smoke some dope, they go to beach parties, they even try to drug an unsuspecting girl with sleeping pills. All of this is served up with the right mixture of knowingness and nostalgia. It'll remind you of long-forgotten make-out sessions on some parents' couch, but not uncomfortably so. Based on a play by Jordi Sanchez, director Cesc Gay manages the exactly right tone.

The movie's success is especially amazing in the light of how much could have gone wrong. Coming-of-age-in-the-summer movies tend to produce a prefabricated aftertaste. The gay subject matter as well as the straight sex could have been exploited, overdramatized, or screwed up in a million other ways. Elsewhere, a lot of ink is spilled over the film being "uncompromising" and "disturbing," but there is a difference between frankness and exploitation. I found the honesty here reassuring and touching rather than off-putting. For my tastes, "Krámpack" gets the balance exactly right. The film is light, but not slight, a little miracle of handling a delicate topic with great deftness and care.

Fernando Ramallo, who plays Nico, is a hot commodity in Spain, and it's easy to see why: he oozes a peculiar kind of confidence and independence that makes it hard to take your eyes off him. Jordi Vilches' Dani, a hyperkinetic joker who's just figuring out what to do with all that testosterone, is the perfect foil for him. In fact, all the characters are a delight, and maybe that's part of the movie's secret: there are no villains in it, nobody is to blame for the things that go wrong, and everybody deserves our attention. It's rare that something so generous and smart flickers over our screens.

"Nico and Dani" is opening in New York on February 2, with other cities to follow.

Directed by Cesc Gay. Produced by Marta Esteban and Gerardo Herrero. Screenplay by Cesc Gay and Tomás Aragay, based on the play Krámpack by Jordi Sánchez. Cinematography by Andreu Rebês. Music by Riqui Sabatés, Joan Díaz, Jordi Prats. Editing by Frank Gutiérrez.

Running time: 90 minutes. Aspect ratio: 1:1.85. In Spanish with English subtitles. Not rated by the MPAA. A Messidor Films Production. Distributed by Avatar Films.