Navigating life as a 14-year-old boy has been a problem for almost everyone who has ever tried it, however Olmo (Aivan Uttapa) has it tougher than most. Along with his father Nestor (Gustavo Sánchez Parra) confined to his mattress — or, on the easiest days, a wheelchair — as a consequence of a number of sclerosis, he’s compelled to share caretaking duties along with his working mom Cecilia (Andrea Suarez Paz) and his highschool sister Ana (Rosa Armendariz), who’s none to completely satisfied to see her social life interrupted by the wants of an ailing mother or father. The scenario can be traumatic sufficient beneath any circumstances, however Olmo can be consumed by the identical existential horniness that fills each 14-year-old’s waking days. He’s shut sufficient to the world of highschool events and exquisite women to know that he desires to be part of it, however clueless about depart childhood behind and embrace the so-called freedoms that include teenage life.
Fernando Eimbcke’s charming coming-of-age movie “Olmo” exists inside the rigidity between a household’s life-or-death issues and the youthful misadventures that simply appear that approach by means of the eyes of an adolescent in Nineteen Eighties New Mexico. With Nestor’s situation doubtlessly taking a flip for the more severe and the household going through eviction if Cecilia misses any extra shifts at her waitressing job, Olmo has a lot to fret about. However most days, his largest concern is vying for the eye of his neighbor and crush Nina (Melanie Frometa) — with out ever talking to her or displaying any trace that he could be , in fact.
These conflicting calls for of Olmo’s time come to a head when he and his pal Miguel (Diego Olmedo) are invited to considered one of Nina’s events on the situation that they provide a stereo. He tries to rebuild Nestor’s damaged rig beneath the supervision of his audiophile father, however disagreements about which wires to attach flip right into a painful argument that shines gentle on Nestor’s bitterness over his personal lack of autonomy and the ways in which Olmo feels his personal wings have been clipped by his father’s fixed wants. In a match of anger, he commits his household’s cardinal sin and leaves his father unsupervised for the evening — a danger that forces the younger man to confront the bounds of an thought like independence whenever you reside inside a household unit.
Think about an alternate model of “Napoleon Dynamite” the place everybody’s scenario was performed for sincerity fairly than cynical irony and also you’ll have a tough thought of the vibes that “Olmo” captures. Eimbcke by no means shies away from the awkwardness of Olmo and Miguel’s lives, from their retro outfits and lack of social expertise to the Odyssey that’s required to provide a working stereo that will grant them admission into a celebration that solely a highschool freshman would ever assume is cool. Some scenes may veer into cringe comedy if directed by somebody with much less empathy for his or her characters, however Eimbcke retains his story rooted in the concept that this complete household is simply making an attempt their finest in a world that by no means bothers to supply them a serving to hand.
There’s definitely a extra critical story hiding inside “Olmo” concerning the toll {that a} mother or father’s declining well being takes on a working class household. However with simply 84 minutes to work with, Eimbcke and co-writer Vanesa Garnica use a lightweight contact to trace on the bleakness of the scenario with out ever partaking with it too straight. By telling the story by means of the eyes of such a younger protagonist, Eimbcke is ready to decrease the stakes of some occasions whereas inflating these of others to inform a balanced story that ought to depart audiences smiling. As a result of on the finish of the day, “Olmo” isn’t a narrative about disabilities — it’s about perspective and the way in which that youth warps it, for higher and worse.
Each time the movie comes near lampooning Olmo and Miguel’s bumbling makes an attempt to slot in, Eimbcke implicitly asks for our empathy by forcing us to recall how the issues that have been monumentally necessary to us at 14 now appear lame in hindsight. For all its spectacular consideration to culturally-specific particulars, you don’t must be Hispanic, from New Mexico, or a baby of the ’80s to understand the movie. All you want is a few cringe-inducing recollections of your early teenage years. In different phrases, “Olmo” is actually common.
Grade: B+
“Olmo” premiered on the 2025 Berlin Worldwide Movie Competition. It’s at present searching for U.S. distribution.
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