Directed by: Alejandro Gomez Monteverde
Premise: A chef (Eduardo Verástegui) and a
waitress (Tammy Blanchard) at a New York restaurant spend a day together walking
the city streets and make a connection that will alter their lives.
What Works: Bella is an extremely well
assembled film. It uses a very smart story structure, cross cutting between the
past, present and future in just the right moments. This allows Bella to
cut corners in the storytelling and get the narrative from point A to point B
without bogging down the momentum of the story or making leaps that are too
large for the audience to handle. The result is a very streamlined film that
balances out very well. Bella features some very strong performances by
the lead actors. The film gives the characters, and the actors, permission to
relax despite some of the intense underlying themes of the film, and allows them
a bit of humor. The dramatic moments are staged quietly, allowing for the actors
to use nuance to convey the emotions of their characters. This is very effective
and avoids over the top sentimentality. Bella is also able to use the
Hispanic culture of Eduardo Verástegui’s character as well as the
metropolitan environment to give the characters a rich background in which they
find each other. Like My
Big, Fat Greek Wedding, Bella thrives in the minority culture and
uses the traditions and idiosyncrasies to allow opportunities for character
development.
What Doesn’t: Some of Bella’s plot
devices are familiar and a little tired. The newly pregnant waitress, the car
accident, dinner with the family, the drama in the restaurant, and long strolls
on the beach are all things that have been done before in films like 21
Grams, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Waitress. Bella does these scenarios very well and gets maximum mileage out of
them, but it also retreads scenes the audience has seen before.
Bottom Line: Bella is a smart, sweet film that successfully uses an intimate scale to study the characters and their circumstances. It’s a nice picture that is very satisfying to watch.