TIFF: The Quietude
Saturday, September 15, 2018 at 12:28PM Nathaniel R reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival
Martina Gusman (Carancho) and Oscar nominee Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) are exceedingly well cast as loving sisters reunited when their wealthy father has a stroke in this sexy family melodrama from Argentina. The sisters are tight despite years of separation but they have dramatically different relationships with their mother (a commanding turn from Graciela Borges) who clearly favors one and disdains the other. Despite the capable and supremely sexy cast (Edgar Ramirez and Joaquín Furriel are the male love interests for the sisters... and, well, who wouldn't be interested?) and a few witty visual moments and firecracker scenes, the movie is a mixed bag. The character arcs don't fully land given the erratic quality of the screenplay.
And I'm not one to normally harp on "the male gaze," a triggering complaint now so frequently overused it's beginning to lose meaning, but here we have a textbook example...