When a very Bear-y Pedro's sister goes on vacation to India, she leaves her young son Bernardo with Pedro. Problem is that Pedro leads a very active social life involving all shapes and sizes of Madrid bears. Predictably, the sister runs into trouble, forcing Pedro and the boy to make a life for themselves.
UGGHHHHH! This is painfully by the numbers. How many different outcomes could there have been for this film, really? It's a foregone conclusion that Violeta (sister) is going to get into some kind of trouble and leave Bernardo with Pedro. She's a new age hippie-type...someone who apparently does take good care of her son, but also likes the weedier things in life, if you know what I mean. She is god to her son, yet lets him down by running drugs across the border. Exactly why do people do this kind of thing if they have someone counting on them back home I will never understand.
Then we have the entrance of the estranged grandmother, whose sole purpose is to manufacture drama for the second half of the movie. It's a tale of blackmail (Pedro has an encounter with a man in the park, is photographed and is blackmailed into letting Bernardo go to a boarding school...oh yeah, grandma finds out he has HIV...and uses that to blackmail him too). Despite the obvious manufactured drama, Bear Cub does service a sub-segment of the gay population that we generally don't get to see: bears. You see, it's generally not in vogue to think bigger, hairier men are attractive, let alone long term potential. This film, while it is in Spanish with English subtitles, gives credience to the idea that Americans are far too hung up on looks. This group is happy together. The first time Bernardo meets them they welcome him like they've always known him.
Pedro, though, isn't a sympathetic character. A friend of his, Manuel, tells him there is a chance that he will be assigned to Madrid for his job. Manuel then tells Pedro he would like to be a couple, live together and all that stuff. Pedro shoots him down because he likes his orgies and one night stands too much. I have to wonder: if Pedro knew he would be faced with taking Bernardo, would he still have said no to Manuel?