REVIEW: Enjoyable, despite poor direction (SPOILERS)

I really enjoyed watching this movie. As a hispanic myself, I love when Latin American cinema presents stories of sexual diversity in such an honest and touching way. In terms of the story, I thought the four stories worked great and showed a specific issue in relationships/sexuality that is relevant and poignant. You have the young kid who is starting to make sense of his newly found sexual feelings, the older man who is struggling to make a real connection after a lifetime of putting up a front, the new couple who is trying to figure out how to balance their private lives as a couple and public life as friends and the couple of 10 years who is struggling to reconnect and rekindle their relationship. I especially appreciated in this last one the inclusion of a real issue within the gay community, which is the discrimination against feminine behavior and bias towards more stereotypically masculine behavior.

The plot and concept are very good and ambitious. The script is good, although a couple times it veered towards the melodramatic and at times said things I would have rather see visually. Nonetheless, it was ell constructed and only cringe-inducing for a couple of bits.

The actors are very good. All the the performances seemed very natural, with some exceptions in the supporting cast. The main cast all delivered organic, rounded performances, including the young kids. I thought the ensemble was very strong and that is fortunate because it is the reason why the movie works, in spite of the poor direction.

The cinematography is good. For the most part the movie looks professional and has very nicely composited shots. There were a couple shots that took me out of it and looked a bit cheap, but this is a low budget film, so I can overlook that.

The direction was the only let down in this movie. The blocking was fine but I felt the timing and rhythm of the movie was completely off. A lot of it felt languid and lethargic. I love slow movies, in fact I prefer them. But there is a difference between a slow movie and a movie with no inherent drive or rhythm. A lot of the scenes fell flat because of this. Generally the more people there were in a scene, the more noticeable this became for me.

Overall, this is a good movie worth watching. If you are looking for a similar Latin American movie dealing with issues like these, I would definitely recommend the Venezuelan movie "Azul y No Tan Rosa", which in my opinion is much superior. Also, one of my favorites is Brazil's "The Way He Looks".