Carmen

Britell’s score super-juices the tragic pall over the film, while Barrera and Mescal channel Romeo and Juliet as the star-crossed lovers who communicate mostly in looks and the occasional pas de deux.

It is indeed a strange film, but not a bad one.

The dancing and photography are striking, and the acting’s perfectly fine. But the sum of it all is a moony inertia, lacking any awakening spark of life.

A film filled with compelling performances, but it doesn’t leave much of an impression.

It’s a heartfelt, extravagant film, swirling with melodrama and music.

It half-works but never catches fire, and is lacking in the very elements — truth, beauty, freedom, love — it seeks to espouse.

This is the first film from writer/director Benjamin Millepied, a dancer and choreographer, and while it suffers from its lack of story, it’s an exciting debut effort and I look forward to seeing what he does next.

Long and petulant, with little text, a visualization closer to a perfume ad than a film. [Full review in Spanish]

A not so cool Carmen. [Full review in Spanish]

Melissa Barrera dazzles as brilliantly as she does in Jon M. Chu’s In the Heights, and her chemistry with Paul Mescal delivers a deeply memorable romance.