In this post-Pulp Fiction world, there's obviously nothing novel about a film wherein a handful of characters leading disparate lives see their paths unexpectedly cross within a 24-hour period. And after Amores Perros became an international success a decade ago, the idea of setting such an intersecting-narratives portrait in Mexico even began to feel derivative. But the Acapulco-set Drama/Mex (2007, Gerardo Naranjo) is worth a look anyway, for infusing this structure with low-key intimacy and rejecting Paul Haggis-level melodramatic overstatement at every turn.
Unlike in Haggis' Crash or even Amores Perros, nothing especially traumatic or earth-shattering occurs when a gaggle of indecisive souls--including Jaime (Fernando Becerril), an aging family man contemplating suicide; Jessica (Miriana Moro), a teenage urchin considering thievery and servicing tourists with "happy ending" massages as a way to get by; and Fernanda (Diana Garcia), a young woman torn between her still-infatuated n'er-do-well ex (Emilio Valdes) and her more respectable current boyfriend (Juan Pablo Castaneda)--collide. Small lessons are learned, and the sun rises the next morning just as it always does.
The one downside to this modest approach is that the film feels slight, like something a talented writer-director would do with limited financial means en route to more ambitious projects (and thankfully, that's exactly what this seems to be; Naranjo's subsequent two films, I'm Gonna Explode and the yet-to-be-released-in-the-U.S. Miss Bala have played at prestigious film festivals, and the acclaim they garnered is what led me to check out this earlier effort). The bigger upside is that there's no whiff of dramatic contrivance to Naranjo's approach; he seems genuinely interested in studying the human need to move beyond reckless impulse rather than in stacking narrative blocks willy-nilly.
He and cinematographer Tobias Datum favor handheld close-ups that gaze deep into the characters' eyes. This is especially rewarding whenever Becerril is onscreen as the tormented Jaime. Naranjo's script eschews backstory to such a degree that we're not entirely sure why Jaime wants to take his life, but one look at Becerril's haunted gaze and pockmarked visage and we're given all the explanation we need. Grade: B
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