Joaquín Cambre’s feature debut is nicely shot but held back by a glib romance that descends into unearned mawkishness
Argentinian director and co-writer Joaquín Cambre has created an example of that perennially tiresome genre, the quirky-bittersweet coming-of-ager (not a remake of the French silent classic). It indulges its young hero’s maudlin escapist fantasies by making us live inside them for a long stretch at the end, when we discover that this central trope is anti-climactic and doesn’t work dramatically in connection with the real world.
Tomas (Angelo Mutti Spinetta) is a lonely and unhappy teen in Argentina, obsessed with space travel and plagued with delusional fantasies about going to the moon, all triggered by a traumatic episode in his early childhood. He is not taking the medication prescribed by his psychiatrist and with the exception of a sweet kid brother, his family life is oppressive. Then he...
Argentinian director and co-writer Joaquín Cambre has created an example of that perennially tiresome genre, the quirky-bittersweet coming-of-ager (not a remake of the French silent classic). It indulges its young hero’s maudlin escapist fantasies by making us live inside them for a long stretch at the end, when we discover that this central trope is anti-climactic and doesn’t work dramatically in connection with the real world.
Tomas (Angelo Mutti Spinetta) is a lonely and unhappy teen in Argentina, obsessed with space travel and plagued with delusional fantasies about going to the moon, all triggered by a traumatic episode in his early childhood. He is not taking the medication prescribed by his psychiatrist and with the exception of a sweet kid brother, his family life is oppressive. Then he...
- 3/20/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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