León

León is moderately competent and very earnest. I can’t fully disparage the attempt. But I don’t think this movie adds much to the conversation in regards to the film’s two major themes: grief, and restaurant ownership.

Julia and Barbie have built a life for themselves. Julia acts as a parent to Barbie’s teenage son, León and the women have opened a bistro together. But in the first 30 seconds of the movie, Barbie dies. This is both emotionally devastating and practically complicated for Julia. Julia is not León’s legal guardian. And the restaurant she and Barbie built together was already financially struggling. On top of this, Barbie’s mother is also dealing with her grief and ends up being a larger part of Julia’s life than Julia would prefer.

In its depiction of grief, I know what León was going for, but I don’t think it reached it. Julia is a reserved woman. She doesn’t have that many overt displays of grief or any sort of breakdown. Instead, she keeps going about her days, but now with a heavy sadness in her. Unfortunately, I don’t think León does the best job of depicting the numb mundanity of grief. If you missed the context of Barbie’s death, would the scenes of Julia doing food preparation read as a woman sad and struggling? I don’t think so. I think it would just look like a woman kneading some bread dough. León underplays too much which is one of the things that makes the movie rather dull.

As for the titular León, I have problems there to. Apparently this kid is angry and withdrawn. Neither of these things come across. The kid seems to be dealing well with grief. He still practices his clarinet and is always open to receiving physical affection from his family members. There’s a big difference between what the film tells us about this character and what it shows up. And then, León the child exits the movie with his father and the film’s focus becomes León the restaurant. I get that the restaurant is like, a metaphor for things and a representation of Julia and Barbie’s life together. But do you need the metaphor when there is also a genuine person named León?

The film’s mundane, day-to-day approach means that it lacks a strong story structure. While this is a short movie, it was always hard to determine where I was in the story. The film takes place in minimal locations over a limited period of time. Which is helpful in disguising that there’s often minimal through lines from scene to scene. The film is edited in a way where scenes often cut off abruptly and then you’re dropped into the next one without resolution of connective tissue. This also means that the flashbacks are a bit confusing. They’re flashbacks are of a recent past. So, León’s the same age and Julia has the same hairstyle. Without any stylistic elements like a colour filter, it can be hard to determine when a flashback starts or ends. The only real basis is whether or not Barbie is present in the scenes.

I feel like I can’t be too hard on this small movie about grief. But I personally found little in it that I enjoy. Like I said, I don’t think it adds much to the conversation. Not that a film needs to do that. But what it brings to the table is not particularly unique, nor of standout quality. Especially as a film with such heavy themes of grief, it’s disappointing that León failed to drum up any emotion in me. Too much time was spent on the restaurant management storyline which doesn’t particularly interest me. Like grief, I also have personal experience with working in a restaurant kitchen. So I don’t exactly need or want to see a film cover this topic at all, and certainly not so unremarkably.

Overall rating: 5.1/10

Other WLW films in similar genres