Cruisin’ in his Pinto, he sees homies as he pass — Eduardo Verástegui stars in TIFF People’s Choice Award-winner Bella
Bella (a.k.a. Beauty) is one of those movies that is less ambitious than it seems. On the surface, it’s an emotional human drama that delves into some pretty heavy themes — depression, abortion and racial stereotyping all come up. Its uplifting family-oriented message is an epic one of the redemptive power of love-over-tragedy — à la Life is Beautiful or Jim Sheridan’s In America. Still, though the movie succeeds in making you like its central characters enough to keep watching until the final scene, Bella lacks the depth to make you care much past the closing credits.
The movie centres on a day in the life of New Yorkers Jose and Nina. Jose (Eduardo Verástegui) is a man derailed by a tragic event in his life (only alluded to indirectly for much of the movie) for which he cannot forgive himself. He has quit a promising career as an international soccer star to hide out as a chef in his brother’s restaurant. Meanwhile, he spends mornings staring moodily out at the ocean. When Nina (Tammy Blanchard), a waitress at the restaurant, is fired for coming in late, Jose discovers that she is pregnant and contemplating an abortion, and he is moved beyond his personal purgatory. He befriends the distraught Nina, and together they take off on a journey filled with New York vignettes, touching family moments and some very serious conversations about life.
Written and directed by Mexican-American filmmaker Alejandro Monteverde, Bella has its moments. Verástegui and Blanchard are the film’s best qualities. Both actors are immensely watchable and do a credible acting job. Verástegui, in particular, plays the part of Jose with a gentle yet compelling grace reminiscent of Jim Caviezel.
As well, director Monteverde demonstrates an adept use of visual language; the movie is filled with lovingly filmed snapshots of life, from food being prepared in the kitchen to buskers performing on the subway, to Jose’s family dancing to Mexican music. These scenes both emphasize the theme of appreciating the little things in life, while portraying the richness of Latino culture.
Bella, however, bogs down with slow pacing and attempts at artful symbolism that are clumsy at best (for example, early on, Jose weeps as he sees a butterfly being sucked down the kitchen drain; in the final, uplifting scene, we see kids flying a butterfly kite high overhead on the beach). As well, the overall character and plot development in the movie are quite minimal, leading to a somewhat simplistic and predictable resolution to Jose and Nina’s dilemmas.
For all its imperfections, Bella is a likable movie. It won the 2006 People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, and with sympathetic characters like Jose and Nina, an uplifting, culturally enlightened theme and moments of sparkling imagery, you can understand why.
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