★
Thirteen-year-old José Miguel is immune to 1994 World Cup fever until he realises soccer is the only way to win the heart of his crush
Classification: 12
Despite all the right ingredients for a cute, pleasing underdog story about a ragtag team of misfits competing in a school soccer tournament so main character José Miguel Mota Palermo can win the attention and affection of popular girl Cristina Palazuelos, All the Freckles in the World just dissolves into an upsetting, confusing mess. José Miguel is the new kid at school, an outcast who prefers to invent strange devices than socialise and initially it would seem that his conflict with Cristina's boyfriend Kenji in the soccer tournament and subsequent bet about the winner being her boyfriend would create some form of character growth. It doesn't, as the screenplay from Yibrán Asuad, Javier Peñasola, and Gibrán Portela offers minimal character development, doesn't properly conclude any plotline and abruptly makes everything the film was about meaningless.
Hanssel Casillas' performance as José Miguel is good, but the script fails in making him into a likeable protagonist, his selfish actions, obsession with Cristina go beyond just adolescent mistakes into plain unlikeable stupidity. There is no arc to the character, no humility or growth, he ends as he began and considering the pain he causes for his friends around him and has no understanding to the consequences to his actions, doesn't leave audiences sympathetic to his ending. The entire cast in fine in depicting a realistic high school and the strange mavericks that can reside within but the script fails their all set dressing to a stylistic, quirky film making the entire film feel all the more hollow. Basically, every plot thread is slowly dropped or forgotten and there is no sense of victory to All the Freckles in the World as it feels all the important cathartic conclusions were left on the cutting room floor. The storyline following Malo, a nineteen-year-old student who keeps failing freshman year who becomes José Miguel's team star is one of those classic underdog tropes the film seems to build something towards. Instead of a story of how the team helps Malo and the other misfits including a fat kid, a kid with leg braces and a kid called "Thriller" wearing a Michael Jackson glove (It's 1994 in Mexico, he doesn't know better) find new confidence and purpose, which seems to be the case with Malo's surprise skills at soccer grabbing the attention of the principal, all the characters are just dropped in the third act. Malo, who seems to be having a sexual affair with one of the teachers (the ethical ramifications are never addressed just like everything else about the film) is merely a tool for other character's needs but Yibran Asuad's direction never gives the character any agency or conclusion.
Similar as well for the female characters; Christina played by Loreto Peralta and Andrea Sutton as Lilianna, José Miguel's two love interests. The love triangles to All the Freckles in the World begin with the typical expectations; José Miguel is attracted to the popular girl Christina, Christina has a popular boyfriend Kenji, Lilianna a less popular girl seems to have a crush on José Miguel and essentially drama is caused by all the classic who likes who. The film, however, has José view, Christina, as property, something that he has to win, while teenagers undertake this misogynistic view in films, usually, the story has the characters realise the error of their ways but here they do not. José Miguel becomes more stubborn as time goes on, trying to use his inventions to try and win her (he's not a very good inventor as none of his devices works and there is no payoff to his inventing anyway, just becoming a throwaway quirk) and his toxic misogyny makes the film underwhelming and disappointing to watch. Yes, he is a child but the film doesn't use his flaws as a tool for storytelling or to have audiences reckon with this behaviour. It's more of a case of "this character is an asshole, root for him" and since the other interesting elements are dropped by the third act, José Miguel is, unfortunately, all we are left with. This is not a film where you root for the boy to get the girl making all the romantic themes and undertones awkward and misguided.
Matias Penachino's cinematography may be the only saving grace the film as while the director and co-writer Yibran Asuad starts the film strong, its the visual style that gives the anaemic second half some life. Use of lighting and slow-motion gives some glamour to the mundane nature of the soccer matches alongside the creativity to the inventing sequences (again it is bizarre how that had no bearing to a dramatic climax) but its all to the service of nothing. Alongside the production design, All the Freckles in the World is a very nice film to look at but without charm to its story and characters, it's only a surface-level improvement.
Yibran Asuad and her co-writers fail in their attempt to deliver a quirky underdog romantic comedy, without satisfying or even logical conclusions for its characters and incohesive connections to all the storylines, the film leaves audiences cold by the end. The positives to the film are eventually all wiped out as the disquieting realities to the characters come to light and no storyline achieves the triumphant tone that the genre is known for. It's not a clever realistic examination of these tropes but a misguided, poor-spirited mess that neglects the potential of its characters and performers.
Director: #YibranAsuad
Cast: #HansselCasillas, #LoretoPeralta, #LuisdelaRosa, #EmilianoCastro, #AndreaSutton, #AlejandroFlores
Release Date: January 3rd 2020
Available to stream on Netflix
Trailer:
Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews
Images and Synopsis from Netflix
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