I enjoyed most the dry narration that tracks morbid tangents to their conclusion (an accident that causes a traffic jam, the omnipresent memorial crosses by the side of the highway, the fate of a passing herd of pigs) -- that kind of deadpan sense of humor infuses the movie -- and the atmosphere of this road movie that travels through several levels of Mexican society, from the palatial home of a high-ranking politician to roadside huts. I was less enthralled with the notion that a woman shows herself to be liberated by fucking a couple of teenage boys, and the ending that helps to explain why the woman, Luisa (Maribel Verdú) behaved as she did felt unsatisfying and something of a cop-out.
Verdú and the actors portraying the two sex-obsessed teenagers who cajole her into joining them for a road trip, Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, are charismatic and endearing. The film feels realistic, intimate, immediate. I don't think it deserves the breathless superlatives many critics are heaping upon it, but it's a charming, unassuming, fun movie.
A note to those of you in the DC area: we saw this at the new Landmark Theater at Bethesda Row, which is a state-of-the-art venue for art cinema (i.e., all stadium seating, no gigantic columns smack-dab in the middle of the room à la Janus). They have a few kinks to work out, but nothing approaching the fuck-up level of Regal Cinemas -- they showed the movie on time with no problems. Please, please patronize this theater so that Landmark will open another one in a more central location (they're looking at sites downtown if the Bethesda location does well).
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