Diego Fairman (Willem Defoe) discovers that his cancer has spread and he has three months to live unless he gets a bone marrow transplant. Whilst in hospital he becomes friends with a Hindu boy he shares a room with.

My Hindu Friend is a semi autobiographical film from Héctor Babenco. Babenco himself received a bone marrow transplant to treat lymphatic cancer and the film opens with a title card that explains this is a story that happened to him and he is telling it the best way he knows how. Sadly this was Babenco’s final film which he made in 2015 before his death in 2016 and it is now finally available on Amazon and other streaming platforms.

This is a difficult film to watch. Initially your expectation might be that this is the case because it is an emotional journey of a man dying and facing the finality of death. But actually, whilst there is an element of that it is far more to do with the fact that Diego seems to be a hideous human being who is irredeemable. It’s an interesting choice given how autobiographical the film appears to be. How much of Diego is Héctor was a question I kept asking myself throughout.

Defoe’s performance is extremely committed and he seems to have lost a vast amount of weight to play the role. His conversations with a Death like figure he plays chess with are interesting to a point whilst his friendship with the titular character seems less important and have barely any impact. Elsewhere when the film is based in a US hospital it seems a little hamstrung by the fact that it clearly features predominantly South American actors.

Ultimately I found the 115 running time to be a slog given the tone of the film and unlikeable nature of its protagonist.