Two men lie on the beach debating how to write a screenplay. One is conventionally hunky: muscular, naturally hirsute but neatly trimmed, with thick dark brows and the kind of lantern jaw that casting directors in the 1940s would have immediately drafted into a pirate adventure opposite Tyrone Power. The other is slender and feline with pink and blue hair, sharp, perceptive eyes, and the sort of eyebrows where it feels like one is permanently arched even when it isn’t.

They are Demos and Nikitas, and we quickly learn that they are besties who frequent the various locales of Athens’ queer scene and had dreams at one point of being actors, and in Nikitas’ case, directing too. He asserts, with an equal mixture of admiration and jealousy, that Xavier Dolan acts in his own films and had already released four features by the time he was the same age as Nikitas.

Luckily, there’s now some potential funding available for a film. But what kind of thing should they make? Write what you know, they figure. How about a spry, sexy metafiction set in and around Athens’ queer scene, starring a couple of familiar sounding BFFs, and telling the story of the summer when Demos briefly adopted a dog named Carmen?

The reference point might be Dolan, but there’s at least as much Charlie Kaufman in here, if Kaufman also threw in acres of male flesh, a bit of cruising and plentiful explicit hookups, which is undoubtedly part of this film’s appeal. Shot and graded in a bright and sunny palette with plenty of scenes set beside crystal-clear blue waters, it’s easy on the eyes in more ways than one, and while there’s fun to be had with the meta conceit, it’s not a taxing intellectual exercise. Come for the acres of flesh, stay for the cute dog.

• The Summer With Carmen is in UK cinemas from 28 February.