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Eduardo Verastegui,
Eduardo Verastegui,
Tammy Blanchard,
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Alejandro Monteverde,
Alejandro Monteverde
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: Lionsgate
: Drama, Foreign, Romance, Latin America
: 91 min.
: English, Spanish
: English, Spanish
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A man whose life is about to be changed forever discovers that sometimes it takes losing it all to finally appreciate the things that truly matter in director Alejandro Monteverde's emotional tale of self discovery. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
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| Fea
by talltale
May 12, 2008 - 6:17 AM PDT
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3 out of 6 members found this review helpful
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So very life-affirming that you may want to run screaming from the room, BELLA is a shock, to say the least. This is the film that won the People's Choice Award at the 2006 Toronto Film Fest? What "people" were these? Have they ever, over the last ten years, turned off their TV sets or taken a break from their telenovelas? I ask because, while I have seen many worse films, I can't quickly recall a more mediocre one. From the first moment, when the narrator gifts us with a bit of wisdom from a dear relative that turns out to be something most of us will have heard twenty times already (it was very nearly the title, not to mention the theme, of Julia Sweeney's lovely documentary "God Said, Ha!") to the second, third and onward moments filled with tiresome exposition and enough tears to sink the Titanic, everything--story, screenplay, direction--is tired and secondhand.
The even-more-tired film techniques used by director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde are simply annoying and unhelpful. Showing us snippet after snippet of the BIG MYSTERY EVENT that happened to our hero grows ludicrous early on because we've already figured out what the event was. The cast is able and quite attractive but this is not enough to warrant a full-length film devoted to piling up clichés as though they were pearls of wisdom. Spoiler ahead: Even more bizarre is the movie's positive push for adoption over abortion, after serving up its least pleasant character as a prime example of the former. (Of course, he sees the errors of his ways pre-finale. What a crock!) If you're in the market for a decent Mexico/USA co-production (of which, I hope, we'll be seeing more in the years to come), try "La Misma Luna." Or for a clever, entertaining Spanish language film made here in the USA, watch "Ladrón que Roba a Ladrón." |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.71)
7 Votes
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