Rocio is a woman working as a lawyer, trying to find the love of her life. She meets Giancarlo, a comicbook fan who designs apps. Even though their first encounter is clumsy, Rocio agrees to meet him again and go on a date. He even tells her about a circle he is doing on the floor, using toilet paper, wherein the person standing inside has to tell the truth. The two fall in love and become a couple, but their different worldviews start to burden their relationship. They break up. Two years later Rocio is about to get married to a different man, but suddenly changes her mind. Two years later, she is seen with Giancarlo and their kid together.
“Inside the Circle” is “Annie Hall”-light, a bitter-sweet grown up romantic comedy about the trials and tribulations of a couple, though it is far less stylistically playful or innovative as the former. Some of its best bits arrive in the first half, when the story is both funny and brutally honest: the first meeting between Rocio and Giancarlo at a party, for instance, isn’t as ideal as most romantic comedies would put it, since Giancarlo returns back to the sitting Rocio and whispers to her in Spanish that her pants ripped on the front, a hole revealing her red shirt underneath. He just tried to warn her, but she takes it as an insult. Still, Giancarlo is such a different type on a personality that Rocio cannot resist but to go on a date with him. During a walk, he reveals his peculiar philosophy: “If I date because I need to date, I feel like I’m wasting my time. If I’m not doing it, I do other things that I love.” Rocio wonders what would happen if he stays alone during old age, and he even has an answer to that: “It means I did what I loved with the time I’ve had.” Later on, he even admits his ideal relationship would be four days with the person he loves, and the rest of the week free time off for himself. The movie thus explores people adapting to each other to try to change and do what is best for both, not just for the one. Occasionally, the movie is fun while toying with some ideas, such as presenting each chapter as a printed text somewhere, as it appears on a blackboard, a parking ticket or even on the screen of a mobile phone. Unfortunately, the main actress, Stefy Garcia, is a much better actor than her counterpart, Omar Mora. Likewise, after 50 minutes, the film runs out of steam and inspiration, and we are left with dry, standard dialogues and a soap opera-like relationship drama for the next half an hour, up until the very refreshing and tantalizing ending. The leitmotif of a circle, including a painting of it in Rocio’s room, symbolizes the full circle the couple undergoes (even in the form of a ring). The movie has its moments, and yet one just wishes it had more of them, and on a higher level.
Grade:++
1 comment:
great film!
Fixer in Poland
Post a Comment