Most Beautiful Island

Most Beautiful Island was extremely well-received at Austin's SXSW Film Festival where it won Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature. This eloquent film explores the experiences of Luciana, a recent undocumented immigrant, who has recently arrived from her home land and is just trying to get by in New York. The film focuses on a single day as she takes various odd jobs and then gets invited to work at a mysterious party where she will be extremely well-paid for a single night's work. The suspense builds towards a truly shocking and deeply disturbing climax. This film shows the truly dark side of the American Dream and the truly disturbing nature of class privilege in a society with huge gaps in class and, therefore, power and privilege.

The story is described as inspired by true events so there may be some exaggeration in the actual climax, but it is still quite powerful and leaves the audience awestruck. Ana Asensio directed, wrote and stars in this fascinating and absorbing film. It is beautiful written, filmed and acted. The tension builds towards the disturbing climax. The American Dream is not always what it seems to be and needs to be re-imagined for our current economic and political realities. I hope the film gets distributed so more people can learn to empathize with the immigrant experience which has sadly become a political punching bag in recent years.

This movie is not quite what you expect and this is it's charm. I like this movie because it shows essentially how the rich exploit the poor, and although not an original idea, it takes on a new spin, and thus is not quite what you think. The heroine of the movie seems to draw you into her world, her problems and yet despite everything, she emerges not as a victim, but as someone in control, with a heart, and someone with great strength. The immigrant seeking a better life emerges as someone more beautiful and stronger than the spurious "American Dream" , and she removes the facade from the rich and powerful for weak and pitiful embodiments that they really are.

I do not know how to categorize this film. A thirty something immigrant from Spain is escaping her life there after a tragic accident has killed her daughter. Her mother asks her to return home, but she decides to remain in New York City. She works odd jobs, including one as a babysitter to two spoiled brats. A Russian friend informs her of a job paying $2,000 just to attend a private party and blend in while looking pretty in a black mini skirt. If it is too good to be true, and you know the rest. She shows up at the party and it does not go well. The last 15 minutes or so are quite disturbing. There is no way to describe it without spoiling the movie and so I won't. I will warn of some brief full nudity. The acting is good and it only runs eighty minutes. NY City provides a gritty background which works well for the movie.

If you watch the last 15-20 minutes of the movie you watch it all. The rest of it just seems stretched. In the beginning there is a scene where there are many cockroaches entering through a wall. I thought it was meant to give a horror turn but it turned out to be nothing. If its just meant to be the story of hardships faced by an immigrant and what all things they sign up for then it could have meant something but tagging it under horror mystery doesn't make much sense.

Very slow buildup - should have been an episode of the Dark Mirror or a horror anthology not a full movie as there is no character development or any real story development.

The end though does hold some suspense and has an interesting denouement but its only an average movie to pass your time and it won't set your world alight.