Popi (1969) User Reviews

unusual idea

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 26 September 2022]

Abraham Rodriguez (Alan Arkin) is Popi to his two young sons. The boys' mother is dead. The three of them and his girlfriend Lupe (Rita Moreno) live in the slums. He struggles with various odd jobs and surviving day to day. He notices that the new Cuban refugees have much better lives and comes up with a crazy idea.

I like the idea of the premise. I like the location. I don't like Abraham. I get that this is a satirical comedy. It has moments of humor. I never really get to like Abraham. I need him to show more love to his kids and his girlfriend. I get the idea of running after those neighbor kids is him worrying about his sons turning wild. It needs some setting up. The only time when that love is front and center is when the boys are out in the water. That is the best. Aside from that, Arkin is no Latino. Maybe he can pass but I know he's faking. Back in the day, it's business as usual. All in all, I like the originality of the premise more than the execution.

Overworked man wants to escape the inner city

[ksf-2 · 6/10 · 1 June 2009]

I loved Alan Arkin in "The Inlaws", but here he plays a completely different part. In POPI, he is a widowed Puerto Rican father "Abraham" who can't wait to get his young sons out of Harlem. The sons are played by Reuben Figueroa and Miguel Alejandro; the actors playing the sons appeared in just a couple more projects after this one. The film opens with them attending the funeral in New York City. Then we meet the girlfriend, Lupe, (a 38 year old Rita Moreno, with long hair!). We see them trying to survive in the rough city neighborhood, working three jobs. His roof leaks, they try to break into his shabby apartment, but when they pick on his kids, he comes up with a plan to get away from it all. As of today, IMDb has this film rated as "G", but when Turner Classics showed it, it's listed "TV 14". There is some violence, at 23 minutes in. Also, at one point, Arkin turns and talks to the camera, which felt a little out of place at that point in the film. The first half is the setup, showing us how bad things are in the city, but the second half is the big adventure, which almost turns into a farce. A pretty-good, entertaining film, with some small tidbits of humor thrown in here and there. According to IMDb, this film was shown on NBC in 1977... they must have edited some of the scenes out to make it safe for TV. Directed by Arthur Hiller, who would direct Arkin ten years later in "The Inlaws". In 1976, it was made into a TV series for CBS, starring Hector Elizondo, but it looks like it only lasted one season.

Noisy mess

[bregund · 6/10 · 19 January 2019]

I don't know quite what to make of this loud barrio piece, if Hiller had nudged it in any other direction it might have been brilliant but I was never sold on the outlandish premise, which Popi reveals halfway through the film. The idea that a father would abandon his children to give them a better life might have worked, but the way he goes about it is so hackneyed and poorly planned that you can't imagine someone of his intellect actually putting it into action. If city living is compromising the lives of his kids, is moving out to the suburbs beyond his means? Why not just live in Miami, since they went all the way there? I don't get it. None of this is to belittle the considerable talent of Alan Arkin, who always seems to vanish in his roles much like Alfred Molina, and here he gives it his all; it's hard to believe this is the same actor from The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, put the two characters side by side and you can't tell them apart. Oh, if you're squeamish about watching parents hit their children, you might want to skip this one. There's a lot of hitting.

Uneven but touching

[MissSimonetta · 7/10 · 12 June 2023]

POPI is a strange film to evaluate. It is both a satire of Cold War politics regarding Cuban refugees in the US and the struggle of Latin American communities, and a Chaplinesque comedy about a father doing his best to give his sons a better life, even if he won't be in the picture. The atmosphere is one of urban squalor, with the first half set in late 60s NYC. Though ostensibly a family comedy, the film does not shy away from depiction of child abuse (though they would have deemed it "discipline" back then), poverty, violence (a pigeon is decapitated onscreen), and alcoholism. Amidst this grim setting is plenty of slapstick comedy and shenanigans.

I'm not sure it all works. Tonally, the film swngs back and forth between pathos and absurdity, especially when we find out just what the protagonist's crazy (and dangerous) plan is. That this plan is so insane does strain one's sympathy, but Alan Arkin's performance keeps the audience from disliking the main character. He's a rough guy, even a borderline insane guy, but you never doubt his devoted love for his sons. There are moments where Arkin really breaks your heart and the two boys playing his kids are great as well. They feel like real kids and not cutesy cartoons.

I was also struck by the ending. It's a happy ending on the surface, until you see that resigned look on Arkin's face in the last shot. The father's dilemma has not been solved and it is clear he is not satisfied with returning to the status quo, but whether or not he'll find another way to make a better life for his family is not clear.

Brilliant Acting, ridiculous premise, and Popi is Spelled Wrong

[joecesare · 6/10 · 8 November 2023]

First of all, what man wouldn't rather marry Rita Moreno and move to Brooklyn than live in the second-most unlivable, disgusting apartment in the history of cinema (the first being Ratzo's place in "Midnight Cowboy,") and that place was condemned? The guy is working three jobs; he can't afford better? He even says out loud that the neighborhood is a sewer. He somehow saves enough money for bus fare to Miami, paint for the boat he stole, and of course we never see even one other soul on the beach where they stay for a while. Also, once the true story got out, some version of child protective services would have locked this guy up for endangering the welfare of his children. If they wanted a better life, they certainly could have lived in Miami for a while. And one more thing - since when is "Papi" spelled with an "o"?

one of my favorites

[marc67 · 10/10 · 18 October 2005]

I found this movie completely by accident when I was about 15 years old watching TV late at night and this movie was on. I had always loved those gritty NY stories so this was a perfect setting for my sensibilities.

Anyway I caught the movie just after it started and I loved every minute of it. I thought that Alan Arkin played his role so beautifully! The comic irony of his very tough situation trying to make ends meet and caring for his two young sons was not lost on this 15 year old kid.

I remember crying at the very end of the movie just because after all the father went through to try to ensure his sons have a chance at making it out of their poverty stricken circumstances, it didn't matter because all the boys ever wanted was their father, whom they clearly adored! Anyway I just enjoyed this movie thoroughly and have always suggested it to people if you enjoy a warm, funny and sweet story about what matters most in human relationships!

Wonderful Alan Arkin!

[shepardjessica · 5/10 · 7 September 2004]

Alan Arkin, especially in the 60's and 70's, was one of our best actors and in this average but interesting movie he plays a Puerto Rican father with two young sons and he's totally on the mark! Rita Moreno is wonderful as always. The two young boys gave believable performances.

A 5 out of 10. Best performance = Alan Arkin. Arthur Hiller was a pretty average director (except for THE HOSPITAL). The film never really takes off like it should but it's pleasant entertainment and Arkin works wonders as a caring father with few prospects of a better life. Another wonderful character in Arkin's gallery! Another semi-interesting New York tale of survival.

Brilliant performance by Alan Arkin

[Mark in the Dark · 10/10 · 21 August 2000]

This is my favorite acting performance of the always underrated Alan Arkin. He plays a widowed father of two young boys in Spanish Harlem who works numerous jobs and will do anything - ANYTHING - to provide a better life for his two young boys. There is no job he will not take and no sacrifice he will not make for his boys. The method Arkin finally decides to take is controversial. How? Let's just say that during the whole Elian Gonzalez saga, quite a few references were made to this movie. (PLEASE don't let that comparison turn you off to this movie - I cringed at those comparisons as well at first until I realized that yes, the comparisons had a valid point.) This movie is very much a drama, but Arkin, in his magical way, manages to not detract from the drama while injecting his own brand of physical comedy as well as his patented panicking dialogue (such as in the hospital scene.) The two young boys, who lived in Spanish Harlem when they were selected to act in this movie, are very good as well.

Decent acting, but not funny at all

[angelsunchained · 5/10 · 13 August 2018]

Comedy or Drama? Seems the director and writers could make up their minds. Alan Arkin was good as always, but all his yelling and screaming is not funny and wears thin after awhile. The two boys were cute, but played obnoxious parts and gave me a headache. This film would be politically incorrect in todays world, but it is entertaining enough on a rainy night with little else to do.

Heartwarming, funny, and fascinating

[aromatic-2 · 10/10 · 28 November 2000]

Alan Arkin is excellent as a Spanish Harlem father of two pre-teenage boys who decides that they'd be better off without him in a fresh start. Warm, winning, insightful, and wry, this movie never strays off course from its poignant objective. The music and location footage are also excellent. Rita Moreno is fine in a supporting role. The scheme Arkin plots also is eerily reminiscent of the Elian situation even though the movie is filmed 30 years before the incident!! John Harkins and Anthony Holland are also marvelous. See it.

A fantasy in squalor

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 14 June 2015]

Alan Arkin is in good form as Abraham, nicknamed "Popi", a Puerto Rican widower in New York's Spanish Harlem who works several different jobs to provide for himself and his two pre-teen boys; he also has the occasional roll in the hay with a tootsie, played by Rita Moreno (to show us, I guess, that Popi is a man with needs--why else is she there?). Character piece from screenwriters Tina and Lester Pine is rather an undemanding showcase for Arkin's talents; he doesn't exactly tone down his manic personality, but he's lukewarm here: likable throughout and a convincing dad to the kids. It's to Arkin's credit that, even when director Arthur Hiller resorts to that hoary device of having a screen character break the fourth wall to address us directly, the actor never becomes intolerable. The film has interesting slum-neighborhood atmospherics, but Hiller isn't concerned with realism and never gets his hands dirty. Take for example the opening credits sequence, which has the two boys leaping and playing in slow-motion in a cemetery--just after visiting their mother's grave. Arkin received a Best Actor-Drama nomination from the Hollywood Foreign Press; Tina Pine and Lester Pine's script was nominated by the WGA for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen. ** from ****

Beautiful film

[anapana · 9/10 · 21 August 2015]

Out of all of Arkin's older films, this is always the one that pops into my mind. It's so simple, but so touching. I laughed and was also in tears. Arkin slips so well into the role of a struggling Puerto Rican father living in New York, who wants the best for his two boys. Watching it now, in the 2010's, it's an interesting look back at how low-income immigrant-life was back then in New York. The mentioning of prices of things (taxi cab rides, shoes etc.) is quite funny to hear now, considering that you'll never find a pair of shoes for $5 anywhere anymore. Rita Moreno's role was small, but a good one, and the little boys' chemistry with Arkin came across very naturally and believable. Arkin is though, undoubtedly, the driving force of the story. I highly recommend watching this one.

Hurtful, unfunny movie

[im_eja · 1/10 · 11 August 2019]

I am an American who came from Cuba, along with my family, as a political refugees. One Uncle died in a Cuban political jail. My friend's Dad was hunted and killed in a shoot out with the Cuban gestapo. When President Johnson initiated the Freedom Flight, he did so in order to address a crisis. Cubans did not receive any special treatment, my family certainly didn't. At least Puerto Ricans have all their political freedoms intact, Cubans should be so lucky. This movie is stupid and unfunny; it makes light of a hurtful subject. If you wish to see a well made movie reflecting what happened in Cuba, see Andy Garcia's The Lost City.

amazing

[mike-388-686148 · 10/10 · 6 March 2014]

Fine film.. If made today would be considered for best Picture.. Alan Arkin.. is amazing.. if you have teenagers ..show them .. My father took me to the movie at 10 years old.. never forgot it..Shocking parts .. some very funny scenes.. Inventive , you will cry . The kids also played PERFECT parts .. True love explored and what it can do to anyone...Grew up in New York .Spanish Harlem shot perfectly .Music theme played differently to reflect mood ..Similar to Last Tango in Paris shot with many hand held camera's ..not really any thing missing from movie. MGM channel plays it from time to time if you see it watch this touching film,,

Heart was in the right place, but...

[gbill-74877 · 5/10 · 28 June 2023]

This is a film of two halves, the first showing this single Puerto Rican dad (Alan Arkin) raising two boys in the gritty world of Spanish Harlem. There was a palpable sense of realism in its on-location footage which was great, but the plots points were silly and rather tedious, e.g. Arkin struggling comically with a corpse. Then we have the second half down in Miami, which wants us to believe a guy would send his small kids out to sea on a small boat with no food or water so that they can pretend to be Cuban refugees, which is absolutely crazy, and disagreeable even if viewed as political satire. I just couldn't get over this concept.

I think the heart of the film was in the right place, as it certainly had an empathy to immigrant parents and their sacrifices. Unfortunately, the execution was clunky, starting with the casting of Alan Arkin as a Puerto Rican. Maybe he's not literally in brownface, but I found the performance with all its shouting rather stereotypical, and in any event, lacking in warmth. The slaps he doles out to his kids are part of a larger theme, that of tough love, but they're difficult to watch, and the relationship didn't seem believable to me.

There is commentary on Cuban immigrants being treated better than Puerto Ricans in the wake of Cold War and anti-Castro maneuvering, and commentary on how political figures and the media try to capitalize on this story in contrast to their neglect of people already in the country. I appreciated what I thought it was going for, but felt it was undermined by how it went about it.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Rita Moreno, whose appearance was what drew me to the film in the first place. At 38 years old this was an important role for her and she's fabulous of course, but unfortunately there wasn't nearly enough of her. The scene on the rooftop when she confronts Arkin and he grabs her throat, telling her not to tell anyone of his crazy plan, is a strong one, her eyes so full of emotion. The film would have been stronger had her character been fleshed out, and more believable if he had moved to Brooklyn with her. That's what immigrant parents do, struggle but keep their families together, not launch their kids into the ocean.

the movie to assign about the 2014 border crisis

[sanfranciscoprofessor · 10/10 · 27 July 2014]

Forty five years ago this brilliant, ironic movie covered every moral issue raised by a nation sentimentally interested in other countries' impoverished children, but bored by its own. Performed by two actors now acknowledged to be, as the Japanese say, "living national treasures," Alan Arkin and Rita Moreno at the height of their powers. Arvin could always make his outrage funny, and that's vital here, because this could have become a dark or preachy in other actor's hands. Rita Moreno made far too few movies. In this one you see that with Garbo, Bergman, Horne, Hepburn, she was one of the 20th century's great presences. The definition of a "classic" is that it transcends its own era-- but in this case, the sad truth may be, the era never ended. The 1969 nation's effusive reaction to two children who are refugees from poverty, crime and gang violence, the sudden ability to discover a "humanitarian" crisis abroad while ignoring the one at home, is eerily close to the 2014 nation's response to the border crisis. No film could more clearly point out that nobody declared a humanitarian crisis when these children were two of our own. But no good drama can be paraphrased like that, or turned into a single, simple moral. Anyway, no need for a professor to wait for a drama about the 2014 crisis, to stimulate class discussion. This film raises all the issues, and there are two incomparable actors. Ten stars.

Some people just don't get it...

[rosepernice-448-282173 · 10/10 · 12 January 2020]

If you're Cuban, please keep in mind that this is a comedy. This movie is not a story about Cuban refugees. It's about a father's insane love for his sons. It will make you laugh and cry. Alan Arkin should have got the Oscar for this. I've always loved this film. Just watched it recently for about the 5th time.

One of my faves

[kimmishy5 · 8/10 · 11 August 2019]

I remember this movie from childhood. I liked it then and I still like it

Abraham Forever!

[edwardfuente-72762 · 8/10 · 19 March 2020]

Quirky comic character vs gloomy social reality. We saw it in Roberto Benigni's "Life is Beautiful". We had seen it in Charles Chaplin's "The Kid". Tina and Lester Pine, Arthur Hiller and Alan Arkin give us the yarn of Abraham, a Puerto Rican widower who will do anything (well, nearly everything) to take his two little sons out of East Harlem and into a better life. Act one in the ghetto is grim and the laughter comes as an occasional chuckle, but the last thirty minutes - especially the scene with Abraham as an interpreter between the kids and the authorities - are nothing short of hilarious with very black humor. Viewers may deplore the hero's lack of ethics, but his fanatic devotion to the survival of his children will surely win him their sympathy. One of the best works from director Hiller and comedian Arkin.