Andrea Martinez, making her full length film debut, shows an affection for the disjointed narrative, so popular with her fellow Mexican creators, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo Arriaga, who have made a name for themselves with this type of story telling.
We are given a look at the way five lives touch each other in separate instances. There is Esmeralda, a young woman working in a small Chinese restaurant in Mexico City. She takes care of her ill grandmother and a younger sister. Esmeralda is a hoarder, she keeps objects that she finds and stashes them in a chest she keeps locked. She wants, above all to go join her two siblings in Canada, an almost impossible dream.
Augusto a child psychologist, is a frequent diner at the restaurant where Esmeralda works. An older man, he is only seeing a few patients. One day he leaves his wallet behind by the table where he ate. Esmeralda takes it. The money inside does not interest her as much as the piece of paper she finds inside with what appears a telephone number. Augusto, long estranged from his family, is reminded by his wife to call his daughter that lives far away. It is too late for that, he decides.
There is another man that frequents the restaurant, Ivan, a doctor who loves to do origami figures with the paper place setting at the table. He lives with Eli, a photographer. Their relationship is not going anywhere. He has turned impotent, or so it appears to Eli. The reason, we get to learn, is because he has found out he has a son from his involvement with Paula, now living with another man. The boy is facing an almost fatal disease.
Ms. Martinez repeats her scenes as though to give emphasis to each narrative. She reveals a bit more as the action goes back to something we already saw. She works as though peeling a fruit, each layer tells us a little bit more about each of the people in this tale. The film gathers some familiar faces in the Mexican and Spanish cinemas. Barbara Mori, Fernando Lujan and Paulina Gaitan have been seen before. Carmelo Gomez and Lucia Jimenez are the Spanish guests in the film.
We are given a look at the way five lives touch each other in separate instances. There is Esmeralda, a young woman working in a small Chinese restaurant in Mexico City. She takes care of her ill grandmother and a younger sister. Esmeralda is a hoarder, she keeps objects that she finds and stashes them in a chest she keeps locked. She wants, above all to go join her two siblings in Canada, an almost impossible dream.
Augusto a child psychologist, is a frequent diner at the restaurant where Esmeralda works. An older man, he is only seeing a few patients. One day he leaves his wallet behind by the table where he ate. Esmeralda takes it. The money inside does not interest her as much as the piece of paper she finds inside with what appears a telephone number. Augusto, long estranged from his family, is reminded by his wife to call his daughter that lives far away. It is too late for that, he decides.
There is another man that frequents the restaurant, Ivan, a doctor who loves to do origami figures with the paper place setting at the table. He lives with Eli, a photographer. Their relationship is not going anywhere. He has turned impotent, or so it appears to Eli. The reason, we get to learn, is because he has found out he has a son from his involvement with Paula, now living with another man. The boy is facing an almost fatal disease.
Ms. Martinez repeats her scenes as though to give emphasis to each narrative. She reveals a bit more as the action goes back to something we already saw. She works as though peeling a fruit, each layer tells us a little bit more about each of the people in this tale. The film gathers some familiar faces in the Mexican and Spanish cinemas. Barbara Mori, Fernando Lujan and Paulina Gaitan have been seen before. Carmelo Gomez and Lucia Jimenez are the Spanish guests in the film.