Composed of four chapters, In the Summers tells the story Eva and Violeta, and their relationship with their father, Vincente (Residente), who they are only able to see on their summer holidays.
In the Summers is a small miracle of a picture - a blend of precise scripting, direction and absolutely pitch-perfect casting.
We piece together the evolution of their changing relationship with their father, through three pairs of actresses, from small children, to adolescents and adults.
As Vincente battles with alcoholism, his daughters have to grapple with their growing isolation from him, as well as their respective sense of personal identity.
The film grants the viewer the benefit of bringing their own empathy, their own history and imagination to the characters and their relationships.
While the movie invites interpretation whilst still imbuing its characters with a sense of weight and context.
The film is so clearly defined in its study of these characters that you can still track their dynamic when they speak in un-subtitled Spanish.
The young actresses are uniformly excellent - conveying a shared sense of history, trauma, and pain.
As the faltering patriarch, Residente is wonderfully human. He is no caricature of addiction. He never feels like a two-dimensional villain or antagonist - even when he is becoming actively dangerous for his children.
The two names I was familiar with - Sasha Calle and Lío Mehiel - have pretty small roles, but they fit in as the eldest incarnations of the daughters.
Calle was solid in The Flash - it is good to see her in a film like this. She brings a quiet sadness to Eve that is affecting. After their breakout role in Mutt, I was wondering where Mehiel would pop up again. They are pretty effective here, although as with Calle, that effectiveness lies in how seamless their performances fit with those of their younger co-stars.
Dreya Castillo and Kimaya Limòn (Young and Middle Violeta), and Luciana Quinonez and Allison Salinas (Young and Middle Eva) deserve equal credit for their performances.
All six actors not only feel like they are playing the same people, but they feel like siblings with a specific dynamic and sense of history.
This is the real special effect of this movie.
The film ends unresolved:
Vincente has not completed his downfall. Our young protagonists seem to treat their dad as an obligation to be ticked off while they go about their lives - only to realise they have been isolated by him.
He is in a different place; like them, he has learned to live without them.
A sadly ironic ending to a beautiful film.
No comments:
Post a Comment