User reviews

Skimming through the reviews, I noticed that a common critic consists on portraying the characters as "too dumb". Unfortunately, the representation is accurate and many people in CDMX (as in any city in which ignorance and poverty prevail) do think in such primary ways. The movie is built on a metaphor: axolotls ("water monster" in nahuatl, prehispanic tongue) which are salamanders endemic to CDMX that never fully develop and remain tadpoles, even as adults, for the rest of their lives. Axolotls are often seen throughout the movie: (a) inside the fishbowl of the main character's (Cagalera) girlfriend, and (b) outside the canteen, as graphity, before Cagalera enters the canteen and is beaten by his "dad". Some say we Mexicans are like axolotls: we have the potential to develop and finally mature as a nation, but never achieve to do so. Just like axolotls, we perpetually stay behind our true potential. We are no more than perpetual tadpoles. The movie tries to address this issue. As long as ignorance, violence, retaliation, machismo, homophobia, and similar problems portrayed in the movie prevail, no progress will be ever achieved.

What a nice surprise was this movie. Chicuarotes is the raw story of a couple of characters born in misery, and to whom the future does not bring more than more misery.

Loaded with urbanity, sleaze language, black humor and helplessness, CHICUAROTES manages to portray with realism the difficult life of those who have very little, sometimes nothing ... and their attempt to leave a vicious circle in seemingly infinite. Bravo!

The movie will keep you interested from the beginning to the end, it shows the reality of many people in México and what they have to go through everyday (crime, violence, etc). It will make you laugh several times and also drop some tears.

This film is made every 3-4 years and when they seem to have experience on it they always make the same mistakes again. The weight of the film falls as always in seeing the sad and hard life that these people live, stories that are not far from reality, but if anyone took a camera and went out to record surely they would achieve what this script with mediocre dialogues could not achieve. It hurts because the opportunity to make a movie is not available to everyone, but why do they always give it to the worst writers? Why always this pretentious view of social inequality? Can anyone do something different in México?

A good movie, with a dramatic plot and excellent performances; I recommend it.

If someone imagined it could happen, the story of chicuarotes is one of many unfortunate stories that surround the most poor in Mexico and developing countries, it portrays in an immersive manner the struggles and the ignorance of people that are just born, raised and mourned in misery. It is not a movie that generates guilt in the viewer rather than it awakens appreciation of what you have and confronts you to the terrible reality that some people live, from your comfortable couch. Characters are poorly developed but not stupid as some say, it is really a series of bad decisions.

A lot to process.

As a mexican this was so fun / painful to watch. Its one of those movies that put your reality in perspective, and at the same time makes you realize how lucky you are to have a decent or good life.

The characters and interactions are so real it made us suffer along them. I dont understand users whining about them being bad people, I perceived them as victims of their circumstances.

BRAVO Gael, que orgullo y qué gran trabajo. Gracias.

It could have been good, but the execution was rather poor. Nothing about the characters made me believe that they would act the way they did, it kind of just concluded that poor people are stupid, rather than that poverty/in search of better life led them to take desperate measures and make silly mistakes.

There are plenty of other films where the idea of poverty followed by tragic events were constructed in a better and more realistic way, this one doesn't even fall in the mediocre category.

Nice work, good production, the movie shows the reality about the worst situations in mexico city, but the way that gael garcia show to us these problems and the situations with the caratchers we can see a realy good movie with some tiny problems, that show to us, how is the space and the situations that happens everyday in those towns in mexico city.

A well shot telenovela with little to none understanding of the actual reality lived by its characters.

That movie is awkward and sad, it doesn't matter from what point of view you see it, because it is a reality that many Mexicans prefer to ignore. While it does not have its own style in the film direction it is not negligible that this film has opened the debate that many of us have about how bad is the assault on a person when the need governs everywhere. The debate of how bad society is in Mexico that we must resort to self-defense and this can be our downfall, the film is not bad, it is incredible and deserves this qualification...

There is a lot of misunderstanding about this movie in this review section. Once a person understands the culiture of CDMX and the life of a chilango en México then that person will be able to understand this movie. Great delivery and full of emotional drama. I would not expect anything less from a Mexican director. Great cast, great characters and this movie portrayed the real struggle in cdmx. This movie is a heavy movie. Full of emotion and was delivered very well. I am just adding extra characters to this post to meet the minimum.

Para mis mexicanos, somos más fuertes juntos. Vive México.

I was hoping for something along the lines of Amores Perros but this fell woefully short. The movie's main flaw is that the characters are painfully stupid and/or unlikeable. The main character is a scumbag, unlike Gael Garcia's character in Amores Perros who was likeable. The only redeeming main character is the young girl, who shouldve been the main character around whom the movie centered.

I think it is the harsh reality of the Mexico that currently exists, the things that happen in this movie have really happened in the country, and it is a slight adaptation of it.

I feel this movie is overhyped by the people because of it's fake deepness, it doesn't have anything but a "reality" so it's just full of homophobic remarks and the writer spitting "hey this is wrong by the way". The decisions the main character takes are ridiculous constantly and they don't have normal consequences, it always works out some way. Every image is beautiful but it lacks of a good writing. By the way, the actors actually do the best they can, but there's no saving for the script. Summary: Empty and beautiful

"Chicuarotes" (2019), a film that graced the Contemporary World Cinema section of the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and was subsequently selected for competition at the 2019 Shanghai International Film Festival, is a cinematic gem that deserves far more attention than it has received.

Now, you might be thinking, "So what if Gael García Bernal directed it?" But let me assure you, dear reader, it's not as simple as that. Such achievements are not mere happenstance.

García Bernal, in essence, has crafted his own poignant rendition of "The Little Match Girl." While the gender roles are reversed, the essence of the story remains intact, and the result is a raw and unflinching portrayal of poverty, desperation, and the harsh realities of life on the margins of society.

Mexico, as a cinematic landscape, is a treasure trove of hidden gems. For three decades, I have been exploring its depths, and with each discovery, I am continually astonished.

Despite being a devoted fan of Gael García Bernal, owning DVD/Blu-ray copies of almost every film he's starred in, I stumbled upon "Chicuarotes" entirely by chance, through a list on Letterboxd.

The list, aptly titled "Actors Directing Films," comprised over a thousand films, and I had already seen roughly seventy percent of them. This is because, as I later discovered, I have a particular fondness for films directed by actors.

I surmise that this stems from their innate ability to understand and guide fellow actors, a skill that Gael García Bernal masterfully demonstrates in "Chicuarotes."

In conclusion, if you harbor an affection for Mexican cinema and trust the name Gael García Bernal, then do not miss this film. It's a gritty and unflinching portrayal of life in the slums of Mexico City, a film that will stay with you long after the credits roll.

Two teenagers behold the abyss of poverty, domestic violence, social issues and life in the dark corners of Mexico City. We get to see the abyss through the eyes and actions of the characters and the recurrent question: "Is there any other way to survive?". There are many moments in which different metaphors based on details, conversations and objects make their way into the film to create an atmosphere that goes beyond what is presented. Some of those metaphors fail to complement the main story and actually in a certain point we might stop paying attention to the plot of the movie. However, it gets the jobe done in building the entire context, in making you feel scared and anxious when an intense scene appears.

Gael García seemed to find a good topic, even a decent story. But instead of giving space and allowing the characters to be (I'm no longer here and even Roma are good examples of this), Garcia Bernal simply aligns them to the soap opera stereotypes that Mexicans are so used to (if not sick of) by now. For a moment, I thought I was watching La Rosa de Guadalupe (Televisa does produce the movie and it shows). Luckily other Mexicans creators are doing what Gael did not dare to do.