Well Deserved Praise

Absolutely Fantastic

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Joaquin and Mara are next door neighbors in a Buenos Aires suburb. Each one suffers tragedy early in life. Joaquin's mother abandons the family because she is ill and doesn't want to let him see her deteriorate. Mara's father leaves her mother and moves to Holland. The friendship comes to an abrupt halt when Mara decides to join her father in Europe and Joaquin feels betrayed.As the film opens, Mara has returned home. She wants to try for a new musical that is being put together. When she goes to see her friend, she finds a distant individual who has not gone out for a few years living in his room and not having contact with anyone. This young man is being treated by a kind psychiatrist, Dr. Balbis, who wants to cure him, but Joaquin is uncooperative.Mara, on the other hand, is having her own problems adapting to the new reality back home. Joaquin's attitude hurts her deeply. She wants her old friend back, but it's hard for him to accept. When Joaquin is taken to a clinic to treat his depression, Mara is given sealed letters meant for her to read, but which Joaquin never got around to send. This incident is the catalyst in the film for Mara to go and tell him how much she misses him.This tender love story was based on an idea by the lead actor Adrian Suar, who plays Joaquin. Daniel Barone, the director, shows he was the right man for bringing the film to the screen. The screen play by Marcos Carnevale and Marella Guerty makes this film work.Leticia Bredice, one of Argentina's best film actresses, makes us care for Mara. Ms. Bredice is a multi talented performer as well in the segments involving the rehearsal for the musical, as she proves she can sing and dance, as well as act. Adrian Suar gives a restrained performance as Joaquin, the wounded man suffering a depression he can't get out, as much as he tries. Jorge Marrale is excellent as the kind doctor who helps Joaquin overcome his problem.The film will not disappoint.

El Día que me amen (When Somebody Loves Me) was put on my queue out of random, why? I forgot. Something attracted me to this foreign film, that only a selected few has heard of. So then, I got it in the mail; I didn't know what was to come. The only insight I had was what I got from its official site. I watched it, right, at first I kinda just sat there as the credits rolled on, then it started to dawn on me that this could be the film I was looking for. The film that I wasn't intentionally trying to look for. My intentions were to stray away from Hollywood's corrupted ways into the more independent path...from other countries and so on. Out of sure luck, the first film that came to me happened to be my inspiration to further continue on with this. Next thing you know I writing down a full list of foreign films that seemed appealing, and the only thing I had to do next was hit "add to queue".What this film is about. Joaquin is a young man who continues living in the house of his father, locked up in his room. He suffers from deep depression that was cast on him by past events. It seemed at the time that nobody could help him to surpass this suicidal depression. Not even Balbis, the psychoanalyst, who Joaquin continues to see over the next two years. Mara, a talented actress, returns to Buenos Aires after living with her father, and after she disappeared with any word. She returns from her escape, but already nothing is like was it was when she left...her house, her mother, her childhood memories... Nevertheless, when she comes across her previous childhood friend Joaquin again, their lives give in to an unexpected turn. In ways of old and new times of friendship, past and current moments of romance, opposites attracting, giving one another what they need to survive in this dark world. There's really no right or wrong way to put it, this film brought to me a different side of things relating movies and films alike, and understanding how much I and everybody else have missed out on. Why I'm off wasting my time and money on these only "so- so" movies, and then so then they can make even more? Hollywood is now a shame to us all, and this movie proves it! In past times before the era of Hollywood you would get the big EPIC films that brought new lightening to our imagination. Take a piece of paper and jot down the movies we could've lived without, and then the ones that had honorably part to us. I guarantee you that one is much higher than the other, typical Hollywood. I may be a little out of line here, but in other words, I really loved this film. One of the best I have ever seen. In some ways it's because I can highly relate to Joaquin and his condition. The reasons to it may be different, but nevertheless, despite his high-headed stubbornness, I have a real soft heart for him. Mara can be a bit of an airhead/slut at times, but you can't blame because she doesn't mean to, and she doesn't do it to hurt others. That's what makes her all the more lovable to me, and whether any of this comes to her or not she still is a good person, and pretty too, really pretty.****/**** stars Two Thumbs WAY Up! Beautiful! Wonderful! A Blessing to Us All and Everything Above!El Día Que Me Amen (2003): Rated R for some language and sexual content

One thing that's fairly true about Argentine cinema is that movies tend to look a lot like TV programs; which has its advantages and disadvantages. Because you know that you're not going to see TV when you get inside a movie theater, and if you find something TV-like, it's a disappointment.On the other hand, you turn on the television and watch programs like "Los Simuladores" or "Locas de Amor", and it feels so much like a movie, that you end up amazed. Coincidentally, the latter of these two shows is from Pol-ka, probably the best producing company in Argentina (produced the Oscar-nominated feature "The Son of the Bride"); and the director was Daniel Barone, director of "El día que me amen".Barone is Pol-ka's most gifted director, and has directed most of the company's films and its most awarded TV shows. As you can see, everything is connected, and the man who controls it all is called Adrián Suar. Now only in his 30's, he has created his own big company and has came up with the ideas for all of its productions. He has also achieved a solid acting career.I'm saying this because he is my favorite Argentine actor today and he thought of an idea for "El día que me amen" that concludes in what is his most risky performance to date. I'm grateful he took a big compromise with this movie, getting the best director he had and reuniting the best actors he had ever worked with; including Alfredo Casero, in an incredible appearance I can't detail because it would ruin the experience.Suar plays Joaquín, a troubled grown-up who hasn't left his house in years, because he thinks he was abandoned. A doctor played by Jorge Marrale (wonderful portrayal) visits him every week to talk about his state. Nothing changes; his father Ignacio (Juan Leyrado) has understood it, although he blames himself for some things he did and he can't take back.Many things happened in Joaquín's life. Things I won't tell that carry with the whole film. The one thing I can tell is that his best friend and probably girlfriend left without letting him know, and after that his life went on hold. That girl is now a woman, and has now returned, and now everything will come out; for good or not. She is Mara, and is played by Argentina's best actress (and my favorite), Leticia Brédice in a performance that seems so natural when being so complex, revealing different personality sides and conquering our hearts.What happens between the characters is written by two of Argentina's most efficient writers, Marcela Guerty and Marcos Carnevale. Their screenplay is powerful because their characters' emotions are deep, but at the same time so silent, that you can't really tell. And everything happens so slowly that you are afraid of what's ahead of the characters…Are decisions taken for the good of everyone? Are the actions realized, when brave, actually accurate? I think both questions deserve a "yes"; I don't know what you would say.

El Día que me amen (WHEN SOMEBODY LOVES ME) is an important film from Argentina that bravely examines the spectrum of the effects of 'abandonment' in childhood and how that seemingly minor act can transform lives. Based on a story idea by lead actor Adrián Suar and written for the screen by Marcos Carnevale and Marcela Guerty, this powerful movie steps beyond conventional tales of the distancing of childhood friends and moves into the arena of mental dysfunction and the long road to healing.Joaquín (Adrián Suar) and Mara (Leticia Brédice) are first seen as early 30s young adults, though their intimate childhood companionship is sensitively shown in flashbacks that appear like old home movies. Mara is an actress who has been traveling the world searching for a career and finally returns to Argentina for a chance to appear in a musical production of 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'. Mara is beautiful, talented, but a bit emotionally blurred, having left her fiancé in Spain just before their wedding. While her return is strained at first (she is forced to break in to her own home because her mother forgot she was arriving!), her mother Elvira (María Rosa Fugazot) and friends are happy she has returned after an 8-year absence.Mara is eager to see her childhood friend Joaquín who lives nearby, but there is a strange ambiance about his household: Joaquín has not left his room for two years, living in near silence in the dark, an obviously damaged young man. His father Ignacio (Juan Leyrado) is compassionate but feels Joaquín should be admitted to a psychiatric clinic. Joaquín pleads to stay at home and Ignacio agrees as long as his therapist doctor Balbis (Jorge Marrale) visits him daily.When Mara first sees Joaquín she is visibly disturbed, senses his problems, and begins to urge him out of his self-confinement. Slowly the two friends reveal each other's etiologies for maladjustment to life: Joaquín never recovered being abandoned first by his ill mother and second by Mara's abrupt leaving Argentina for her career, and Mara still is wounded by being abandoned by her father as a child and her failure to form lasting bonds with men. By opening memories and ultimately places outside Joaquín's house where they shared the intense bonding of their childhood each begins to heal: Mara has a successful evening as the star of her musical and regains her wounded self respect and Joaquín (with the incredibly fine help of therapist Balbis) shows he is shedding his pain of abandonment and growing toward a normal existence - these two factors set the stage for the film's conclusion.Director Daniel Barone takes this fragile tale and molds it into one of the more tender and touching films about the impact of childhood's 'tragedies' that has been stated to date. The cinematography by Guillermo Zappino never forgets for a moment the dark tones underlying the lives of each of the characters. But the film would never have been so exacting and splendid were it not for the powerful performances by Adrián Suar and the extraordinarily beautiful and gifted Leticia Brédice ('Nine Queens', 'Burnt Money', 'Ashes from Paradise' etc). The supporting cast is equally and homogeneously outstanding. This is one of those films that lingers in the mind, seeking stimuli for remembering our own demons of childhood, long after the credits are over. In Spanish with English subtitles, 110 minutes. Very Highly Recommended.Grady Harp