MW32 Review of Intimate Stories

Intimate Stories (2002)

Nice, but very low-key (Very mild spoiler here)

[7/10 · 20 August 2009]

An appealing movie with a likable cast, "Intimate Stories" could use a bit more plot. The scenery is fascinating (though the cinematographer is too in love with the long shot of endless horizontal landscape), and there are several touching scenes, but there are long periods where nothing of much interest happens. I love quirky foreign movies and I love Latin America (and I loved being able to understand much of the Argentinian Spanish accent, as opposed to Spanish in movies set in Spain), but even I got restless at times as the script simply seemed to be vamping. On the positive side, the movie nicely illustrates the theme that "you can't always get what you want"--- but sometimes what you get may be what you need. Three people travel independently across a bleak terrain to the same town with their own goals in mind. They return home without having achieved (exactly, anyway) what they intended, but with each having found something that might turn out to be better in the long run. Though I gave this movie a 7, I did so only to try to counter those who gave it a 10, which it does not deserve. I'd really give it an 8 for effort and the characters' faces.