La Yuma (2009) User Reviews

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[nielsastrup · 8/10 · 31 March 2011]

I saw this movie yesterday in Berlin - and was truly and pleasantly surprised. Considering, that this is the first movie made in Nicaragua in 20 years, I was expecting this lack of experience and critical mass to show more. It did not.

The story is simple: Yuma, is a young Nicaraguan woman, living in one of Managua's gang-infested barrios, with her four siblings, a parasite step-father and a mother, who would never win a parent of the year award.

Yuma sees female boxing as a ticket out out for both her and her younger siblings..

When she falls in love with a journalism Student form the Catholic University of Managua, her life becomes, well, complicated.....

This movie is worth seeing for the description of life in a Central American slum, the humor, and a story full of real life.

Rough, tough and fulled with tears

[trivial_matt · 5 January 2011]

La Yuma is a beautiful, yet cruel movie. It can make you sad or fill you with hope, depending on your own nature. Some people have said that this little movie is a Third World version of Million Dollar Baby, but apart the fact that both movies show female box, they are two completely different pieces of cinema.

It's also a very unusual movie for those who are used to American or European movies. But, being a Latin-American, I was able to identify myself with the reality shown in the movie, which is very close to my country's.

La Yuma (in a great performance of Alma Blanco) is a rough girl that lives in a poor region of Nicaragua. Her brother and friends are criminals, her stepfather abuses of her sister and she lives in complete poverty. She tries to outcome her own reality of misery with box, and falls in love with a young college student. But, each time things seem to be working out for her, faith decides to mess everything up.

Alma Blano delivers a heartbreaking performance as Yuma, being, at the same time, very strong and very fragile. The script is very realistic, and doesn't try to romanticize the history of Yuma. This is, in fact, a heartbreaking, yet hopeful movie. And it really deserves your viewing.