Hadoum, a Moroccan woman, and Iván, a Spanish trans man, are colleagues in a greenhouse in southern Spain, where they fall in love. However, this love is tough. It has to face problems such as class and race, and, most practically, it interferes with Iván’s promotion. Behind it all lies the expectation of his entire family. Written and directed by Ian de la Rosa, Iván & Hadoum is a strong queer film, showing how love in the adult world can resist life’s unease and become the greatest source of confidence to defy it.

Beneath its romantic exterior, the film weaves immigration, racism, and homophobia into the narrative. These themes are not abstract ideas but realities that base the story in unmistakable authenticity. The greenhouse becomes a microcosm, a space where people from different borders and backgrounds converge and where the outside world never fully stays outside.

De la Rosa captures the complexity of human nature. Iván and his sister still share a bathroom, exchanging the casual intimacy that only siblings possess. Their conversations feel warm and familiar. Yet the person who knows you best can also be the one who understands you least. Family, the film suggests, is never a monolith. It is contradictory and fragile, just like everyone else’s.

At work, when Iván is promoted to probation line manager, he adopts a rigid professionalism, enforcing rules with careful distance. Hadoum, however, is always the exception. Whenever conflicts arise, Iván quietly searches for ways to balance compassion with responsibility. His care for her is present from the beginning, and he never betrays it, even when doing so might make his life easier.

The film’s central dilemma – promotion or love – is deceptively simple. It opens various questions: Must we inherit our family’s expectations? Can we repay love by sacrificing ourselves to meet those demands, especially when they outweigh our own desires? Iván’s promotion is never just a job. It carries his father’s regrets, the history of sacrifice that built him, and the desperate need to prove himself worthy of belonging.

Iván & Hadoum is an atypical romance, queer in more ways than one. No one is truly defeated, not because the characters are unrealistically kind, but because De la Rosa allows the love within each of them to surface. In its place, we find forgiveness, reconciliation and bravery. What stays with me most is the director’s tenderness; the belief that love, messy and imperfect as it is, can still be enough to stand against the world.

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Written by Jane Wei

Featured image © Lluis Tudela

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