El agente topo

I started watching it with mistrust, but in the end it stole my heart. Amazing how reality can be so bittersweet. Recommended especially for young people.

A funny and sweet documentary about an elderly man who takes a job as a double agent in a retirement community to report back on the treatment of one of its residents, whose daughter suspects is receiving poor care.

What the man finds instead is a nice community of old people trying to make the best of their loneliness. He makes a lot of friends and begins to enjoy his time there, but nevertheless finds a new appreciation for his own independence and his daughter, who hasn't abandoned him the way so many of the others who he befriends have been abandoned by their own families.

I thought other countries were generally better than America about taking care of its elderly, but this movie indicates that at least in Chile, where it's set, there's just as much of a tendency in children to let the care of their aging parents become somebody else's problem.

Grade: A-

A different documentary, a fiction, a contract between a detective and a senior citizen, all fake, but it generated a beautiful documentary, moving, sensitive, delicate, dramatic and sad, the solitude of the asylum, the parties, the generosity of those works with these elderly people... Pleasant surprise in the middle of the Oscars, in a sabbatical, inclusive and social year, a pity that their competitors are strong, Coletiv, Crip and Polvo, the four deserve...

I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the audience surprised by this one. Expecting a Jacques Tati or Peter Sellers bumbling detective comedy, we were instead served a heartfelt look into nursing home life. I've not yet had a close relative in a nursing home but the depiction of such a life as presented in this tragicomedy rang true. I was glad to have had this close look into the small pleasures, the great loneliness, and the irrepressible human spirit in its most twilight years.

What begins as an amusing bumbling spy/detective movie, in the ilk of The Pink Panther or The Naked Gun, slowly transforms into one of the warmest and most heartfelt documentaries you'll ever experience. The transformation occurs gradually and subtly. About two thirds of the way through, we finally understand the type of movie we have been watching all along. This isn't a spy movie - it's a story about loneliness, growing old, and the importance of human connection. The story: When a woman suspects her mother is suffering abuse in an elderly home, she hires a private investigator. The private investigator decides to hire an 83-year-old man, Sergio to enter the home posing as a new member. But he's not there for living assistance. He's there to investigate the home's staff and members, reporting his findings to the private investigator. He's there to be the mole agent. Of course, the 83-year-old spy angle is merely a hook. While Sergio quickly proves to be a comically ineffective spy, he simultaneously reveals himself to be an endlessly charming gentleman who endears himself to other members of the home. His friendships form the heart the movie and will leave audiences rushing out to hug their loved ones.