Lina from Lima

It's the first review I write for a movie and I do it pushed by the need to compensate the two really bad reviews the movie received so far.

Indeed it is not a perfect movie, but I do think it is totally worth a viewing. In a quite simple way it pictures the situation of an immigrant Peruvian worker in Chile. And pictures is the right word as the movie shows more than it explains: through the faces of the protagonist (I found her acting pretty convincing), comparing how she communicates with her son (online, as he is still living in Peru) with the interaction she has with the girl she takes care of, her stoicism, her seeking of human contact, the reality of hard working immigrants doing everything to save money and the contrast with the people they work for... The corners of an almost round film are the musical intervals: in my humble opinion they break the rhythm and the general tone of the story, and at first glare even appeared to me as a bit frivolous. After researching a bit, I understood that those are known Peruvian songs (or tunes - side note: hats off to including one in Quechua) and guess that the director takes them completely out of their original context to give some absurdity and strange proximity to the story.

To sum up: not a disaster, worth a chance.

This film is different. The art house product which gives you a smooth watching experience. But, not a movie to remember for a long time. It shows some life, but, fails to really connect and attach the audience with it.

Not wasting more time on this junk, will be short. BAD acting, unnecessary sex scenes which lead to nowhere in the movie, could not figure the "music videos" thru the movie, bad acting and did I already mentioned before ? Bad Bad acting ! 2 thumbs down ..

So, this was simply garbage. It's as if there were no script and the camera was jst following people around with no fixed purpose in mind. The dialog seems to have been made up on the fly and after a while, one just had to give up or die from boredom and confusion!

Right, well I stumbled upon the 2019 movie "Lina de Lima" (aka "Lina from Lima") by random chance here in 2021. I had not heard about the movie, but I saw that it was labelled as a drama comedy, and so I opted to give it a view.

And I am glad that I did, because writer and director María Paz González actually managed to churn out something rather interesting and extraordinary here with "Lina de Lima". I find it somewhat hard to really slap a label on "Lina de Lima", because it is a movie that spans different genres without favorably settling into a single genre. So this was definitely something unique and different.

The storyline told in "Lina de Lima" was pretty straight forward. But it was this simplicity to the storyline and plot that was the essence of the movie and the beauty of the movie. It was so well-written by María Paz González and equally so brought to fruition on the screen.

Now, I was not at all familiar with lead actress Magaly Solier, but wow, she have an impressive talent. She really carried the movie phenomenally well with her performance, and actually single-handedly carried this movie across the finish line. Both her performances in the movie as well as the musical segments were truly spot on and filled with emotion. I was more than genuinely surprised with her performance, and this is definitely an actress who I want to get to see more of her movies.

"Lina de Lima" is not, however, a movie that will be equally appealing to just any one in the audience, as this was somewhat of an acquired taste, given the way the movie was written and filmed. Plus, the storyline might not be entertaining to all people in the audience. I gave "Lina de Lima" a chance, and glad I did so, because I certainly enjoyed this movie.

While "Lina de Lima" is a watchable and entertaining movie, this is not really a movie that bolsters enough contents to its storyline and plot to support more than a single viewing. Once you've seen it, the story just doesn't really have any more to offer, no hidden facets to the storyline here.

My rating of "Lina de Lima" lands on a well-deserved six out of ten stars.