From Y Tu Mama También to the more recent It Felt Like Love, the beach has been fertile ground for tales of sexual discovery and youthful awakenings. Although Mexican director Aarón Fernández’s The Empty Hours takes place near the ocean coast of Veracruz, 17-year-old Sebastián finds his sexual curiosities stimulated by the goings on of the motel Palma Real.

The motel’s owner, also his uncle, has asked the young man to look after the property while he is away treating a medical ailment. What follows is a slowly but mesmerizingly paced film of Sebastián assuming the responsibilities of managing the motel, where he impartially provides clients a quiet, discreet place to park their vehicles and engage in sexual activity. One such guest is the beautiful, jaded Miranda, who spends her free time waiting to rendezvous with Mario, a married man. As Mario becomes less able to keep their appointments, she grows increasingly curious about Sebastián, and the two strike up a friendship.

The original Spanish title, Las Horas Muertas, literally translates to “The Dead Hours,” and the film effectively captures the sensation of time disappearing into the banality of daily life. At the same time, the characters are constantly waiting for something, or rather for someone, and that patient expectancy creates low-key suspense that carries from scene to scene and brief encounter to brief encounter. The film mainly stays close to Sebastián as he silently hands over keys to customers and removes the dirty sheets from the beds after their fleeting but soiling use.

Kristyan Ferrer is pitch-perfect as a composed, easy-going, and yet proactive teenager taking care of business while relaxing and finding the fun in monotony and near isolation. Neither overly immature nor tiresomely introspective, his character avoids the stereotypes of similar films. While Miranda is a bit more narrowly drawn, Adriana Paz finds the potential complexity in a role that might otherwise be reduced to a sexy, lonely older woman. She becomes more than a mere male fantasy and is depicted as savvy and confident, despite her position as the “other woman” and object of Sebastián’s adolescent fantasy.

To help capture Sebastián’s innocence, a younger boy is introduced as a coconut-selling schoolboy with whom he wrestles and shares moments of careless abandon. The others surrounding Sebastián, filling the screen with humor and a more specific sense of place, include an outgoing woman who tends to the washing and an old, slightly oblivious man who assists with the customers. Giving the story some shape is Sebastián’s search for a cleaning lady who is both responsible and not easily shocked—in other words, his female equivalent. The film thus nicely emphasizes the episodic nature of growing up. Just as one significant life moment is disappearing, another presents itself. The film ends with the bittersweet feeling of simultaneous termination and beginning.

The Empty Hours smartly stays clear of predictable moments of dramatic climax and neat character arcs. Fernández’s camera remains at a close distance, present without imposing and capturing without intruding. Rather than proceed through the usual steps of a genre romance, Sebastián and Miranda share a redemptive and enlightening series of days and encounters. It closes on a satisfying note of completion, yet with the lingering nostalgia of youth.