So Much Water

If you plant to watch it, don't. You'll waste 2 hours of your life and you're gonna regret it.

The plot evolves around vacation of two children of daddy who didn't seem to check forecast before he booked it.

Later on, he is surprised swimming pool is closed due to rain, and uses the time to hook up with other woman, to the displeasure of two children.

At the same time teenage daughter of daddy wants to get wild and desperately finds a guy to attend a party. Cigarettes and alcohol go into play. She cannot handle them well and aborts the party and daddy gets furious finding his daughter in such state.

What I learned from the movie: in Uruguay toilet paper is precious thing as you need to ask restaurant staff to have a roll of it before you go to the loo.

Writers/directors Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge have captured that sense of parent/child schism that comes form distance following separation. The film from Uruguay is aptly titled TANTA AGUA ('So Much Water') manages to provide that claustrophobic feeling (rain prevents excursions outside a living space in a little vacation that is supposed to allow a renewed coming together between a father and children): it is a cinematic trick that works.

Alberto (Néstor Guzzini) is divorced and arranges to pick up his tow children form their mother to take them on vacation to a thermal resort in Salto. His children are teenager Lucía (Malú Chouza) and 10-year old Federico (Joaquín Castiglioni) who are unsure they wish to spend the time with their estranged father. Constant rain compounds the problem of togetherness, as there is nowhere to go or nothing to do because of the confining rain. No swimming pool, no television – only Alberto who solos his attempt to entertain the two children unsuccessfully. But the proximity examines the schisms that have occurred and the boredom becomes ennui. Lucía is entering adolescence and by nature doubts her father has any clue as to how she perceives the world, especially when Lucía discovers a boy in the resort who stirs her nascent sexuality. The film is a coming of age story for both Lucía and to some less defined extent for Frederico, but in the end the frustration Alberto feels as he attempts to reignite his fatherly role with his children he no longer understands is what make the film worthy.

This is a small film, rich in suggestion, perhaps a bit slow in execution, but well worth examining how South American families deal with dysfunction. Grady Harp May 14

Tanta Agua (which might be translated as "So much water") tells the little story of a short vacation of a divorced father, his entering- adolescence daughter and his around 10 year old son. They are not lucky with the weather, so they have to spend most of time inside the motel or doing visits to the surroundings which are less than little interesting. The father efforts to entertain his children are not very successful either. This situation soon makes boredom and even certain strain arise specially between father and daughter. Nevertheless, situations are depicted with an amusing sense of humor, and, particularly in the first half of the film, this is one of its strong points.

Nestor Guzzini and Malú Chouza play excellent, very believable roles as father and daughter, and the very good camera work of directors Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge, with predominance of close-ups, makes us feel very much inside the scenes of the family life, sensing their often uneasy interactions, their boredom, their concerns.

The story focuses mainly on the daughter, and we might consider it a sort of coming-of-age film. This is particularly evident in the second half of the film, when an interest of the daughter for a guy in the resort comes up. Her hopes, struggle, disappointments are finely played by the protagonist Malú Chouza, and the film acquires here a somewhat more dramatic side, without ever becoming a real, genuine drama.

In summary, a simple, unpretentious film, but very nice to watch. And for Spanish and Latinoamerican people other than Uruguayans and Argentinians, it has the additional interest of listening to the often funny and charming Uruguay-Argentina jargon; another reason to give this film a chance and watch it.