Who would’ve guessed that Bella,
a sweet little tale about the love developed between New York
chef Jose (Eduardo Verástegui) and waitress Nina (Tammy
Blanchard), would turn into one of 2007’s most controversial
cinematic offerings? After the film surprisingly took home the
Audience Award at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, its
promotion-campaign became nonexistent. (I passed up an
opportunity to see it back in January, figuring that it wouldn’t
ever get anywhere.) By a miracle, Roadside Attractions decided
to put the movie out into select theatres to much success,
marketing it towards the Latino demographic that its characters
belong to. The mainstream liberal media got a hold of the story,
saw the film, and, all of a sudden, decided to dub it “the
anti-abortion movie.” Ardent abortion-rights groups blasted
Bella for purporting that adoption was a superior and more
moral method for dealing with unwanted unborn children than
abortion.
Yes, it’s true:
Blanchard’s pregnant, soon-to-be single-mom Nina decides against
having an abortion after realizing the practice’s severity when
confiding in the strictly-opposed Jose. But to call Bella
a right-wing, Christian lesson in morality is a ridiculous claim
that far-left critics should be embarrassed to have made. This
is a movie about characters and the choices that they make, not
a heavy-handed political lecture. Should I, a conservative who
would like nothing more than to see Roe v. Wade
overturned, have disliked Cristian Mungiu’s masterful 4
Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days on the basis that one of its
characters had an abortion? Of course not. I don’t oppose the
notion that a movie can be criticized for its faulty political
ideology—Michael Moore’s “documentaries” are examples of
instances in which I have done this—but Bella hardly
wishes to make ideological assertions on any
government-related topic, let alone abortion.
That all being said, I wish I could
claim that Bella was a better movie than it is. It is
just as uninspired as it is apolitical. In fact, there were
times when I was watching the film that I wished that it was the
staunchly pro-life essay that its opposition has claimed it to
be. That picture would have been more interesting than
this one is. As Jose and Nina meander around Manhattan and visit
Jose’s parents for dinner in the suburbs, both struggling to
cope with Nina’s newfound unemployment at the hand of Jose’s
boss of a brother (Manny Perez), their conversation feels
natural but unremarkable. Bella’s characters are used for
two-dimensional, melodramatic purposes by co-writer/director
Alejandro Gomez Monteverde, who merely wishes to shake an
emotional response out of easily-affected audience-members
whenever plot-epiphanies are thrust upon them. Thankfully, leads
Verástegui and Blanchard are good enough in their roles that
their performances ensure that the movie’s situations never seem
forced or stiff, always keeping Bella tolerable if stock.
“I wanted to make a movie I could
take my grandmother to,” Verástegui proclaimed on a recent
episode of Bill O’Reilly’s The Factor, in which he
defended the film against its growing opposition. He and
Monteverde have succeeded in doing this with Bella, but
whether his grandmother will actually enjoy the movie is
questionable. If she’s a sap who easily falls for the
manipulation of cinematic soap-operas, then perhaps she will
leave the theatre fulfilled and uplifted. If not, then I’m sure
she will come out appreciative of her grandson’s gifted acting
abilities, but totally disappointed in the script and
direction’s apparent lack of creativity.
-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews
Review Published on: 12.4.2007
Screened on: 11.21.2007 at the
Edwards San Marcos 18 in San Marcos, CA.
Bella is rated PG-13 and runs 91
minutes.
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