'Julieta (2016)', essentially, plays out like a cinematic telenovela (slight oxymoron, aside). It focuses upon a woman who's life returns to the broken waiting-game it once was when she hears of her long-lost daughter during a chance encounter with an old acquaintance. The bulk of the plot actually involves our protagonist writing down her 'dark' past in an effort to explain it properly to her daughter upon their possible reunion, with this journal being portrayed as flashbacks that take up a majority of the flick's run-time. Its strange structure makes for a story that's often told alongside - or, sometimes, instead of - being shown. It does feel a bit odd when the protagonist tells her off-screen kid about things that the kid personally did, clearly just for the sake of the audience. Still, most of the picture is interesting and, even, engaging, despite its flaws. It draws you in pretty quickly thanks to its more-than-competent construction and solid performances. There's not all that much to the piece, however. It basically ends as soon as it gets going and its revelations aren't as devastating as its oddly enigmatic soundtrack would have you believe. Having said that, the movie isn't really about what might happen once its credits have rolled - even if it seems to promise that incredibly early on. It's more of a two-hander that looks at the early life of its lead and the effect that her daughter's disappearance had on her. The latter isn't really given enough attention, especially as it feels like it's supposed to be the focus of the film (since this is where the 'juiciest' themes are), and this means that the former doesn't feel justified enough. The 'current day' stuff is too beefy to just be a framing device but the flashback bits seem like they almost want to be the main narrative, yet feel more like an extended side-plot with fairly little pay-off. It's like there were two possible interpretations of the film that quite never got decided between during production. Like I said, though, the affair is a relatively compelling one that doesn't drag and is never boring. It's entertaining in its own right, even if it ultimately doesn't feel all that deep and has a few key issues. In the end, it's a solid effort. 7/10
Review of Julieta
