#alejandro moreno

HAWKEYE - Kate Bishop & Zombie Clint Barton

I…may have gone overboard. It was just supposed to be the three of them and turned into this XD

Ema (2019)

Directed by Pablo Larraín

(Pablo Larrain, 2019)

There is one thing that you can certainly say about Pablo Larrain’s return to the directors chair, 3 years after his 2016 double header of Neruda and Jackie, and that is that this is... Not normal.

If you were to read the most basic plot synopsis of Ema, its directors 8th feature, penned by his Neruda scribe Guillermo Calderon in collaboration with Alejandro Moreno, it probably wouldn’t sound like much. That is, of course, on its own no bad thing. It certainly puts it almost immediately for me a realm up from his weakest effort to date, The Club, a most on the nose and prosaic affair. Ema for sure gets credit for never lecturing its audience the way that movie did, instead weaving its points into the fabric of the story, into the foibles and turmoils of its characters brought wonderfully to life by the assembled rogues gallery.

And what is it that they bring to life? A tale of initially ordinary appearance, of seemingly everyday struggle embodied triumphantly, internally in the pained, longing, tortured turns of Gael Garcia Bernal in his third Larrain collaboration, and in the titular role Mariana Di Girolamo, in what if there is any justice will be a star making turn. She is every bit her more experienced co-stars match, quietly going about the business of mapping this characters epic internal odyssey without barely a raised voice. Smaller but no less effective turns too from Santiago Cabrera, Paola Giannini, and Catalina Saavedra. 

This tale then has a... Twist in its tail, and as it goes along it transforms itself from this at first glance pretty tragic relationship drama, into some sort of strange black comedy, interspersed throughout its runtime by reggaeton dance sequences. It can take you aback at first, when revelations punch you in the face in one scene after another at journeys end, but as outlandish as it is I feel like it’s a pretty wonderfully honest take on the power of unity, of community, it has a vibrant, youth aimed edge to the whole thing, embodied not just through the heavy emphasis on reggaeton, but by the refreshing takes on sexuality.