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Title: Good film despite flair for the melodramatic
Review: I enjoyed this film about a son who returns to Cuba in search of his mother, whom he's been separated from for over thirty years. Although the film is at times overly dramatic and plays like a soap opera, you still find yourself absorbed in the search. This is a road film and, as such, takes us on a journey. The shots of the Cuban villages and countryside are reason enough to watch.The ending is predictable, but that's okay because we like this kind of predictability. My only criticism is that the director could have handled it better. Basically, it was abrupt and lacked the required intimacy. Otherwise, a warm, heart-felt film with an incredible performance by Isabel Santos. Her performance is evocative of Lena Olin's in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being."
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