Bella **

Director: Alejandro Gomez Monteverde

Year: 2006

Writers: Alejandro Gomez Monteverde, Patrick Million, Leo Severino

Cinematographer: Andrew Cadelago

A nice little film, but the actors are too sexy to believe, and impossible to believe that the girl isn't madly in love with the guy at the end of the day, he's the perfect man, and yet the film wants to attempt this idea in which the girl just treats him like a nice guy.

The acting is lacking as well.

Also, it's hard to feel genuine interest in a character who is so handsome, talented, blessed, and overly puppy-dog-eyed. He has no faults, just had an unlucky tragedy. That's not a character. Characters have faults, not just accidents.

It doesn't earn the last scene, and Tammy Blanchard as Nina gets on my nerves with too much open mouthed crying. It might be okay if she got to that point just for one moment, at the climax of her emotion, but she goes there almost 3 times, and lingers with this sobbing, open-mouthed crying, and all in close-ups. It doesn't work.

You either have to use more subtle facial gestures in close-up or you have to pull back to wider angles, and you really shouldn't have a character weep more than once in a film. Build the emotion, explore the ranges of emotion before weeping.

Unfortunately not really worth the time.