It’s nothing new for the ‘star system’ to have two reviewers come together to make a movie tailored to their needs (especially at low hours), in which they can shine and be the focus of maximum attention. . The problem is that the movie in question is not up to the task, and indeed the only appeal is to see these two actors, in this case Julia Roberts and George Clooney, in action. They radiate charisma and chemistry and are responsible for packing the product well, placing it in an exotic and idyllic setting, which somehow misleads us about the serious problems that a movie with a vintage taste brings.
Of course, those responsible wanted to emulate certain archetypes of classical comedy, but unfortunately Ol Parker (in charge of “Mamma Mia: Again and Again”), not Leo McCarey, not in “Journey to Heaven”, for example, in “La picara puritana”. They also broke up and threw bile at each other, and this discussion, as here, became the axis of the story. Instead, we find ourselves in front of a prefabricated product (and here) with a narrative full of clichés and dialogue. situations) may have been written in the 2000s. But maybe it’s all the same, because even though everything is a bit stale and trite, Julia Roberts and George Clooney are there to save the day, ready to fool the audience. And they’re successful, that’s their worth. Beatrice Martinez
‘Orphan: First Kill’ ★★
More than twelve years ago, ‘La huérfana’ was released and became a cult film as well as definitively boosting Jaume Collet-Serra’s career in Hollywood. There we meet Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a girl adopted by an exemplary family and tasked with sowing chaos around her with the blow of evil until the harmony of that domesticated core is shattered. Now we go back to her origins in a most unconventional prequel, as Esther is supposed to be younger, and the actress who played her, despite the tricks and makeup, has changed the adolescent perspectives of her face that she had at the time. the woman she is. It’s no trivial thing, because the movie takes on an air of unlikely weirdness. And maybe that’s exactly what defines ‘Orphan: The First Murder’: that nothing makes sense. If at least the craziness were satisfying and the movie became a ‘midnight’ entertainment, we might surrender to that maxim, but it doesn’t even reach those levels, decaf for one thing, boring for others.
Her narration tries to imitate her predecessor’s orders and adds whimsical twists to try to distract from the obvious shortcomings of a plot that doesn’t have much mystery left to unravel, because we already know the secret Esther’s been hiding from the start. Additionally, Collet-Serra’s stylistic sensibility fades in favor of tricky pirouettes that turn genuine fear into something unfounded and mundane. Beatrice Martinez
‘Il buco’ ★★★★
Offering a poetic vision of the cycles of nature without being fiction or embracing the purpose of the new documentary, the director of the enormous 2010 film ‘Le quattro volte’ elaborates in his latest film – in a meager filmography of three feature films and five short films from 1995 – from entertainment to documentary. approach. Michelangelo Frammartino reconstructs the August 1961 work of a group of Italian cavers in the Bifurto Abyss of Bifurto, one of the deepest caves in the world, in a calm and beautiful rhythm with almost no dialogue. Frammartino films the wilderness, unaware of civilization’s perturbations, as the cavern turns into a maze of nooks and crannies that speleologists are trying to conquer. It also films an older shepherd, who is even more patient than the younger cavers he looks after his flock, as if it were a reverse shot chosen by nature.
Frammartino’s camera equally explores daily life in the nearby town, where its inhabitants gather in a small square to watch television, a sign of another time, alongside dozens of creases, the wrinkles of time, and the hitherto unexplored cavern. It looks like a documentary, but it’s not. The only truth is that deep Calabria was filmed as if we were still in 1961. Quim Casas
‘The accused’ ★★
A man is arrested in the morning after sleeping with a girl. They both describe what happened in a similar way, but see it as rape and for him it was consensual sex. Building on this premise, Yvan Attal’s new directorial film traces both the characters and their families from the moment of arrest to punishment, while addressing issues such as the limits of consent, double victimization, and a man of culture who is too accustomed to abusing his assumed power. He surpassed the women he came to normalize it with.
To achieve this goal, yes, Attal makes a few controversial decisions: on the one hand, it contains scenes and subplots that try to manipulate our perception of conflict and forcefully impose judgmental elements on us; On the other hand, he even suggests that false accusations and media courts are as serious threats as men’s abusive behavior, to illustrate the elusive nature of truth. In any case, the most obvious clumsiness of the ‘Accused’ lies in his lack of tact. It is a very calculated and didactic film, especially when considering the judicial process in court, to achieve the dramatic complexity required by its main theme or to leave the audience the necessary space to draw their own conclusions. Nando Salva
‘Me and my emptiness’ ★★★
Always very controversial, Jean-Luc Godard said that every movie is a document about its protagonist, even if it’s a fictional story. ‘My void and me’ features Raphaëlle Pérez, a non-professional actress, as its main character. In fact, the movie has fictional elements based on Pérez’s true story, that is, as Godard says, a documentary of its protagonist. And she, androgynous and confident, keeps the whole story afloat. He builds this from his personal decisions and his spontaneous way of always revealing his own insecurities in front of the camera.
Because he is confident but also insecure about his identity. She feels like a girl she has a boy body and doesn’t know if she wants to have surgery she. And this surprises others, starting with the psychologist who treated him at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona. When diagnosed with gender dysphoria, Pérez begins his inner journey to search for the identity he feels most comfortable with. This process is uniquely expressed in small and large details, very didactic scenes, accidental encounters with lovers – some desirable, others very undesirable in their poisonous machismo – a certain tenderness, a certain social aggression. A good movie from Adrián Silvestre, author of ‘Sedimentos’, is a documentary about six trans characters staying in a small town in Leon last year. Quim Casas
‘The Other Tom’ ★★★
Tom is a boy with dark hair as long as his mother. Suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD. There are not so many contradictory situations between them, but in the middle of treatment something happens that causes the mother to distrust the appropriateness of the drug given to the child. Produced by Mexicans Rodrigo Plá and Laura Santullo, who have so far been the screenwriters of Plá’s films, including ‘La zona’ and starring Maribel Verdú and Carlos Bardem, the film documents this mother’s collision with the system: her child taking medicine. Allowing it can result in the loss of custody of the child.
‘The Other Tom’ is a risky movie, not so much for its plot, but because of its handling and the distance it imposes between the characters and the audience. The mother is nothing short of empathetic, but the whole movie works with surprising restraint, considering the child’s hyperactivity and the conflict situations it creates. Plá and Santullo avoid certain problems that are almost always evident in such children’s dramas, whether more naturalistic or fake, and they also take into account that the film offers a broad portrait of a particular Mexican reality: medicine, education, lack of education. there is a father and an immigrant in the story in one way or another. Quim Casas
‘Dual’ * * *
In her feature film debut, ‘Con el viento’, director Meritxell Colell told the story of Mónica, a dancer who works in Buenos Aires and returns to her hometown of Burgos because her father is very ill. In his next movie, ‘Duo’, Colell rescues the same character right where the previous movie ended. After her father’s death, Monica stayed in the village for 12 months to help her mother sell the family home. Freed from this experience of self-knowledge and recognition with her mother, she now embarks on a journey with her partner through the Andes mountain range and performs a dance performance in the towns of the region, which is a deep purification and final purification. It’s an opportunity for an emotional connection between the two: they want to represent him, even if no one wants to see him.
After the return to home shown in the previous film, ‘Dúo’ proposes a return to oneself through an exploration of the duality that establishes every relationship, but is also present in the inexorable laws of nature and time: Sun and Moon, day and night, cold and heat, mountains and plains. The result is a very physical film, a document about the main characters who seek themselves in the altiplano, body by body, loud and silent at the same time, rather than a fiction or documentary about the joint adventure of the two. Quim Casas
Source: Informacion
