Victor’s review published on Letterboxd:
Deeply wanted to love this, and was anticipating it being my favourite of the year *so far*. Sadly, it just didn’t connect. I felt distant from it quite a bit of the time, due to a sad avoidance of close-ups and intimate time spent with the characters. Things were paradoxically moving too fast but also kind of dragging, as it didn’t seem like much, narratively or emotionally was happening. I thought things should have been moving much slower and that more time should have been given to the two characters talking and hanging out. There was some of that of course, but it always felt short-lived and distant. Not a dealbreaker, but intuitively/preferentially, the B&W seemed unnecessary and didn’t cohere with the tone and story of the film for me. I couldn’t explain why, but for me it was ill-suited. Overall though, biggest issue is I just wasn’t nearly as emotionally invested or affected as I wanted to be, sadly.
I am still glad I watched it though! The interview scenes were definitely quietly powerful and show an admirable reverence for children, granting enormous validity and care to their thoughts and feelings, which was beautiful. All the interviewees felt like real people and performed wonderfully. Joaquin and the child were also really really great and had good chemistry. A lot of people are complaining that the child is one of the most annoying child characters, which I think is kind of insane. He was perfectly likeable and consistent for what a child is, to me, for most of the film. The ending was really touching and came after a moment of decently effective catharsis. The photography and compositions were nice to look at it, and the sound design is full of soothing ambience. It was mostly a pleasant watch and certainly has it’s big heart in the right place, just didn’t move me all that much.
66%