In the age of online hookups, signals of attraction – once felt in a significant look or a brush of the hand – are now transmitted by way of screens. Laying bare the gamification of dating, Tadeo Pestaña Caro’s probing debut follows 20-year-old slacker Santiago (Max Suen), lost in a cycle of thwarted desire in Buenos Aires. Whether at his dead-end job at a call centre or lying awake in bed, he is glued to his phone, hungrily swiping through various dating app profiles. A sea of naked torsos and bulging crotches surge across his screen, each promising a passionate encounter and perhaps something more.

Caro’s film captures this obsession with striking psychological precision. There’s a paradox to Santiago’s compulsive behaviour, which is at once all-consuming and distracting. Faced with the illusion of choice, he can’t help swiping even when he’s on a night out with his coworker Karen (Jazmín Carballo), who plays a big-sister role to the restless young man. Santiago’s real-life conversations are punctuated with the constant pings of new messages, offering dopamine rushes that leave him wanting more.

Peppered with witty dialogue, these moments of disconnect bristle with ironic humour and palpable melancholy. It is unclear, however, what Santiago is actually after. When his sexually charged online conversations translate into in-person meetups, he seems to desire genuine intimacy as much as a hookup. He is drawn to a glamorous gay club with a secret back room, but then panics when the fantasy of anonymous sex turns into actual flesh. The script, though, offers little insight into his personal life beyond his screen addiction, so Santiago’s contradictory acts of self-sabotage lack much emotional heft. But despite its weaknesses as a character piece, the film manages to impress with its account of the queer scene in Buenos Aires, packed with vivid visual details.