DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT I Movie Review

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The widowed Dona Leonor (Luisina Brando), who lives in a small Argentine town in the 1930s, is determined to see that her daughter, Charlotte (Alejandra Podesta), achieves as much happiness in life as possible. She refuses, though, to as much as acknowledge the fact that her daughter is extremely short, and will not allow any mention of the girl's size in her presence (the word these days is denial). Leonor's zealous overprotectiveness (she torches copies of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) is challenged when a worldly newcomer (a genteel Marcello Mastroianni) finds himself completely enchanted by Charlotte. Maria Luisa Bemberg's film remains sensitive throughout, never going after easy laughs or condescending to her characters. That's about all she does, however, and the net emotional effect of I Don't Want to Talk about It is one of vague relief at all the mines the director avoids stepping on. The picture might have had considerably more punch if she'd been a little less obsessed with taste, and a little more dedicated to dramatic friction.

NEXT STOP… Camila (1984), Bye Bye Brazil, The Incredible Shrinking Man

1994 102m/C AR Marcello Mastroianni, Luisina Brando, Alejandra Podesta; D: Maria-Luisa Bemberg; W: Maria-Luisa Bemberg, Jorge Goldenberg. VHS, LV COL