I'm Gonna Explode (2008) User Reviews

I am going to explode!

[jotix100 · 7/10 · 31 December 2010]

Roman, the son of a prominent politician in Guanajuato, Mexico, blames his well connected father, Eugenio, for the death of his mother. He even keeps a 'gore' diary where he pastes newspaper clippings of the accident that took his mother's life. He is a rebellious teenager that will do harm to himself if not controlled. Unfortunately, his father, and stepmother, Eva, have more important things to do in their busy lives.

Maru, who goes to the same school as Roman, is an angry teen whose father has left his family when he went up North, leaving her mother, Helena, a nurse, to fend for herself in rearing the family. Maru is also a rebel at school. Attending a school show, she is wowed when she watches Roman perform his solo act in which he pretends hang himself, only to be taken down from the rope by a horrified teacher.

It is only natural these two misfits will gravitate toward each other when they realize they have so much in common. When they stage their disappearance, they do not take to the open road, instead, they stay on the rooftop of Roman's house, stealing supplies to hold them. It is almost inevitable the two youths will begin to form a bond that will prove impossible to break.

Their charade about being kidnapped serves Roman and Maru well. They are clearly having fun outwitting their parents. It is only Eva, the stepmother, who catches on to what the teens are doing, but since she stands to win nothing, she keeps her mouth shut. Having an opportunity to escape to Mexico City, they decide to go back to their hideaway. In doing so. The sexual attraction has been there all the time, but Maru is not ready to commit herself. When they finally engage in sex, it transforms their relationship. Unfortunately, their love affair is short lived, in part because of the fire arms the couple gathered to protect themselves will have fatal consequences.

This Mexican film surprised this viewer. Gerardo Naranjo, who wrote and directed this movie, shows great talent. His influences are clearly French. One can detect his admiration for Jean-Luc Godard, in the way he shaped the narrative. The teen couple at the center of the story want, in a way, to escape the families they are saddled with. In their view the adult world is something that cannot be grasped in their young minds. Loss guides their short lives; they resent the authority imposed on them. The duo does not want to conform to the rules society. This is clearly the result of coming from dysfunctional families, a problem for a lot of people in their age group. Escaping is the only thing left to them to make their point.

Mr. Naranjo directs with precision and gets surprising performances from Maria Deschamps and Juan Pablo De Santiago. The young actors are terrific, working in what appears to be an innate sense of what it was expected from much more experienced performers. Daniel Gimenez Cacho is seen as Eugenio and Rebecca Jones as Eva, the stepmother. Among the producers of the film are Gabriel Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, two actors that went to bigger and better things, something one can wish on Ms. Deschamps and Mr. De Santiago.

The film was shot in and around the city of Guanajuato, in the Bajio area of colonial Mexico, and photographed with style by Tobias Datum. Georges Delerue's musical score mixes well with themes from Albinoni, Mahler and other contemporary popular composers. Mr. Naranjo, whose "Drama/Mex" was another surprise, continues to distinguish himself with every new picture.

Or, Why We Need Gun Control; Lamenting Corruption

[TrTm316 · 7/10 · 8 May 2019]

Any empathy that a viewer might develop for these two alienated youths quickly dissolves: Roman is just another teen idiot with easy access to guns, and being the son of a wealthy politician, he's uncontrolled and knows no boundaries. Maru thinks Roman's alienation from society gives them a common bond, and they link up when she is emotionally vulnerable, feeling as-yet-unrequited sexual urges. Why either of them is disaffected is never explained. And that seems an intentional and satisfyingly realistic directorial choice, to show unthinking teens making bad choices with no plan, no hope, and no future. Things go poorly, as you might expect.

Both lead characters are well acted; their understated approaches suit the mood and the personas. The supporting cast of "responsible" adults receives much less screen time. The camera work is mostly fine. Too-close close-ups and hand-held views, all so unnecessary and annoying, are short and infrequent. Perhaps one day those fads will go the way of bell-bottoms and mullets or their Mexican equivalents.

The scenario, the characters, and the result of I'm Gonna Explode could play out in any one of many nations. I inferred a particular message, as indicated by my title above; others may experience it differently. It's worth watching once.

An updated cinematic expression of Holden's search for authenticity

[howard.schumann · 9/10 · 7 February 2010]

Though it appears doubtful that J.D. Salinger's classic paean to teen-age rebelliousness, "Catcher in the Rye", will ever be filmed, Mexican director Gerardo Naranjo's I'm Going to Explode (Voy a Explotar) provides a kindred spirit in teenage Roman, an updated cinematic expression of Holden Caulfield's search for authenticity (though one with decidedly more reckless abandon). Naranjo, who studied film at the American Film Institute with another up and coming young director, Azazel Jacobs (Momma's Man), owes a big debt of gratitude to the French New Wave, yet his I'm Going to Explode stands on its own as an involving tale of two lovers on the run, never feeling derivative or redundant.

Produced by actors Gabriel Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna from Y Tu Mamá También, I'm Going to Explode rises above its youthful flaws with energy, dark humor, and personal style, and an expressive spontaneity that makes it a rich and deeply moving experience. If Holden had a partner, she might have resembled 15-year-old Maru (Maria Deschamps), a troubled outsider with a rebellious spirit. Bored and feeling very much alone at her suburban prep school in Guanajuato, Maru is an outsider who empties her soul each day into her diary, aching for someone who understands her longings. Her world comes alive, however, when she meets Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago), the disaffected son of a well-to-do right-wing politician.

A bright, impulsive, emotional, and unpredictable young man, Roman seems to delight in seeking his father's (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) attention by getting kicked out of every school he is enrolled in. Now in the same school with Maru, they meet at a talent show in which Roman pretends to commit suicide by hanging and Maru feels an immediate camaraderie. She writes to a friend that "He exists, but I also made him up," and says that "the best part is that he's angry." Roman has similar feelings for Maru and it does not take long for the two free spirits to plan a runaway from a world they can make little sense of. Roman, in melodramatic fashion, pretends to be abducting Maru while flashing one of his adored guns but the reality is less exciting.

Although they both want their parents to think they are far away, in reality they are hiding out in a tent on the roof of his father's house, sneaking downstairs to corral the necessities of life when his dad, Maru's mother, and sister (who have made themselves part of the rescue team), are not at home. Fortified with plenty of wine and rock music which they listen to with dual headphones, they are clearly having fun at the expense of their self-involved but legitimately frightened parents who are thrown off the trail by hysterical phone calls from Roman, replete with misinformation. In a startlingly insightful sequence, Maru expresses her conflicts about having sex with Roman, fearing that she will lose her power over him and be taken for granted if she "puts out" (why most Hollywood teens never think about that is a mystery).

Like most adolescents, one minute they express powerful emotion and seem grown up, the next minute they are squabbling or not talking because of inconsequential jolts to their ego. When Roman and Maru do have sex, it is very erotic because they are at first so hesitant and tentative, perhaps the way we all were the first time. Ultimately, they steal a car with the idea of going to Mexico City but, as in real-life, it does not always work out according to plans. Surviving an unnecessarily melodramatic and predictable ending, I'm Going to Explode is a film of sensual delight and pure exhilaration and Deschamps' performance as the more mature protagonist keeps the film from descending into juvenile hi-jinks.

what starts out interesting--

[colcam · 26 April 2009]

In this case, what starts out as an interesting "outsider boy meets outsider girl and their inner selves bond" premise slowly gets lost as it repeatedly diverts from their story into trivia and returns to the "pair bonding story" before it finally concludes without a real resolution. leaving you wondering "and what happened THEN?"

There is semi-nudity and sexual activity, large dollops of "language" scattered throughout it, but the promise of the premise is washed out and lost before the ending, making the story ring hollow, neither fish nor fowl when the credits roll.

Most of the viewing audience liked it, they just could not fathom why it didn't "really" come to a conclusion of some kind.

I am also going to explode

[acsky9000 · 1/10 · 1 April 2011]

The film tells the story of two young teenagers "defying" their parents, teachers and the rest of the world, trying to find the true meaning of their own lives.

Both the boy and the girl don't get much attention at their respective homes, so they notice each other during the performance of a school play. Then, they find themselves together at detention, beginning their friendship, which leads to a plan to escape from their oppressive reality.

Director Gerardo Naranjo, also screenplay writer, does a poor job trying to express the feelings of a misguided youth. The movie itself is developed at such a slow pace, that it was necessary for them to give some action to the scenes by actually shaking franticly the camera side to side, and then taking the blue of the sky, to avoid the viewers from falling sleep after the first hour.

The main defect of the story is that nothing actually happens. The characters are too young, too naive and to fool to actually accomplish anything. Roman, the boy, even he is only about 15 years old, proves nothing but to be an alcoholic and a coward who runs quickly to save his own skin, leaving Maru, the girl he uses to satisfy his little macho ego, on her own after every obstacle they face during their quest.

While Fernando Meirelles did a marvelous job portraying the extreme excitement and eagerness of teenagers when they do their first sexual endeavours in Cidade de Deus, Naranjo's attempt is blunt and careless.

One last mistake arises when we think they story is placed in Guanajuato, medium sized but internationally known city in the arts and culture scene, while the characters' speech, thinking and accent correspond to low income areas of Mexico City - Naranjo is not able to detach his own background from the screenplay and the result is the story is out of context.

Photography and music were more promising, but by themselves can't keep the film afloat.

'Bonnie and Clyde' meet 'Pierrot le Fou': the Mexican nueva Nouvelle Vague is still alive

[Chris Knipp · 9/10 · 27 September 2008]

Naranja's movies, judging by this one and his previous one, Drama/Mex, which I saw a the London Film Festival, are full of sympathy for rebellions kids in his native Mexico and have an omnipresent sense of danger and the unexpected. This one, 'Voy a explotar,' part of the New York Film Festival slate for 2008, is a romantic but playful drama of teen angst, escape, games that turn dangerous. It's a buddy picture of young lovers who rarely make love, who're indifferent yet adore each other. It's a road picture about runaways who, one of them, the smooth, dark-skinned Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago), being of the privileged classes (his father's a successful politician, married to a second wife), never really hit the road. They escape from view while remaining at home. At Roman's home, that is, hiding out on the roof, where his father doesn't think to look for him--and where they can look down with contempt on the bizarre and silly reactions of the adults.

Maru (Maria Deschamps, more formidable than pretty) is in the same school but her mother is only a nurse. Maru is a misfit at school. "I'm gonna explode" is a line from her diary, from which she reads in voice-overs. It's how she feels sometimes. When Roman presents a "performance" piece at the school talent show entitled "I'll Meet You in Hell," in which he stages himself in a mock hanging, Maru gets it, and they bond in school detention. She's a misfit and an intellectual; he's a rebel desperate for his busy father's attention. His idea is to steal a car and run away from this small town to Mexico City. He pretends to abduct her at gunpoint, and they disappear, but instead of running away they pitch a tent on the roof of his house--where the view of the city is beautiful and they rend their private air with loud music heard through shared headphones. The inside of the tent is shot with a red filter and it's a warm place, at once womb-like and dangerous, since it is a place for scary sexual exploration: they're both virgins, or so it would appear, and are ambivalent about taking the plunge. Inside this warm space they sleep together and cuddle up under the covers, one or the other alternately out of sync by wanting to sleep late.

They sneak down for a blender, a barbecue, food, tequila, wine. Roman wants to make love but they keep putting it off, and in his willingness to do this a certain tenderness and comradeship grow up between them. Still, they get bored with their isolation and each other. Their escape is lazy yet every moment remains full of the danger of their being caught, especially when they go below, not knowing when his father will return. And there are often a lot of people down there, including relatives of both families and the police.

Eventually when they've conned his father and stepmother and entourage into going away, they sneak down into the master bedroom and make love at last, the long-awaited experience heightened by the danger or risking discovery again.

Later Roman's stepmother (Rebecca Jones, a good actress in this minor role who looks a bit like Mercedes Ruehl) climbs up and sees them making love on the roof. She keeps the secret, even though the kids' disappearance is all over the news and there's a police search on, spurred obviously by the importance of Roman's rich, right-wing father Eugenio (Daniel Gimenez Cacho).

Roman is far more fatalistic. If they could push a button and eliminate the world, she wouldn't, but he would. He has developed a penchant for firearms and wears a pistol in a holster rakishly slung over his shoulder at all times, even when they go about in casual outfits, pajamas and shorts. They strike poses and try on costumes--and hats--like a real Bonnie and Clyde. When they finally hit the road, she wears one of Roman's mother's long white dresses.

When everyone's away they hear somebody yelling from below and, lowering a plastic bucket, receive an invitation to his 'deputado' dad to attend a gala Quince Años celebration in Santa Clara. They steal a car and go. Roman turns out to be a terrible drunkard. Later, when they'e in a field the car is seized and they flee separately in terror; they've pledged to reassemble at a certain meeting place. Things finally have an air of desperation once they're separated. It was the two of them against the world, so when one is gone, there's nothing. This is the classic absolutism of all romantic love stories from 'Majnoun Layla' to 'Werther' but the irony is that their relationship always remains as much accidental as it is romantic.

Back on the roof one last time after a sojourn with the one adult he trusts, a guy he calls The Professor, Roman has grown paranoid and rigged up a trap with trip wires and a loaded weapon. This backfires, and the game ends tragically.

Shown at the festivals of Venice, Toronto, and New York, 'I'm Gonna Explode' is original in its combination of edgy rebellion and spoiled upper-class pouting. The movie was co-produced by Pablo Cruz along with Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, the pair of pals who gained international attention with Alfonso Cuarón's 'Y tu mamá también'; more polished now with beautiful visuals and fine acting, Naranjo's work still has the kind of raw energy and freshness we saw in the early efforts of Cuarón, Iñárritu, and Del Toro--not to mention Carlos Reygadas, whom Naranjo declared in his 2008 NYFF press conference to be the greatest director working in Mexico today.

Teenage Wasteland

[NoDakTatum · 4/10 · 5 October 2023]

You know, the teen angst story has been done to death. Come on, "Romeo and Juliet" is centuries old. So when yet another tale of alienated youth comes out, the adult in me rolls his eyes. Roman (Juan Pablo Hernandez) is the son of a right-wing congressman who consistently causes his father (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) and step-mother headaches. Roman is kicked out of another school after his diary, describing a shooting that is dramatized in the film, is found, and he is sent to a school that the introverted Maru (Maria Deschamps) attends. Maru lives with her mother and younger sister, and also feels left out of the world and chronically misunderstood. Roman and Maru tenuously hook up, and escape from the school, taking refuge on Roman's father's roof, as the parents inside worry- kind of. Roman's father has been down this path before, enabling his son. Maru's mother is in a panic. Roman and Maru send their parents on wild goose chases, and break into the home to steal food until they decide to leave. They should have stayed on the roof, as things quickly go down hill.

If Larry Clark went to Mexico, you would have "I'm Gonna Explode," and I do mean that the film irritates as much as a Clark film does. Roman is a maladjusted jerk. He plays with loaded guns like toys, and is every bit the spoiled son of a politician. Maru seems deeper, more complicated, but it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who attaches herself to such a basket case just to be different. The adults in this film are all stupid, but the film maker never succeeds with this part of his screenplay. Instead of cheering on the teens in the face of such bad parenting, you come to hate everyone onscreen, and patiently wait for the inevitable, violent finale. Naranjo's camera is constantly on the move, as if his confidence in his screenplay was lacking. The film has a bleached-out look to it, and the musical score is a mish-mash of rhythmic stylings, depending on the teens' moods. The film has been compared to New Wave French films, but I didn't see the similarities. Naranjo's biggest misstep is the dramatized shooting at the beginning of the film. Shot from Roman's point of view, it is so shocking, the rest of the film cannot possibly live up to it. Watching this film is like watching one of those terrible reality shows, where the cast members talk about how dangerous they are, and how hateful they can be. Naranjo follows through with some explosive behavior, but by that point, I thought a good spanking would have been in order instead. "I'm Gonna Explode" turns out to be an empty threat.