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Rating:  -
I loved this movie, the music is varied and great, from the Latin salsas to the mellow parts---great. The artsy camerawork showed NYC beautifully and the story was moving, especially the blind man....check out the many hidden "lines" in the story through the background signs, items etc, very clever. The main character is a hotty, with a heart!!! And the jokes among the family are great! "I am the king of this house" This is one for the home video library for about the 13 and older set up to adults! Amazon was great with quick delivery. This was a grad gift for my daughter, she loves the movie. Enjoy and share with friends.
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Bella is the best movie I've seen all year. Oddly, the origin of the movie was the intention of the writers/producers to make a film that presents a positive role model of strong Latino families (in this case, a family of Puerto Rican/Mexican origin). It also has a strong pro-life message. But often when filmmakers set out to send a message, the art gets compromised on the way to beating you over the head with it. The Ultimate Gift for example, while it didn't completely beat you over the head, did seem more contrived, and the lead's acting wasn't always tops.
Every good movie is of necessity a contrivance. The trick is to make it seem utterly natural, living and breathing. That's a function of the script and acting. There's a very short scene in Bella with two brothers -- in the beginning, there isn't even any dialogue. They just sit at the counter eating, and one elbows the other, the other elbows the first brother back, back and forth, back and forth. It tells more than words ever could. Simple, natural, and it rings perfectly true. The whole movie has that sort of effortless genuine feeling. The family message and the pro-life message is preached in the softest way, like those pro-life TV commercials the Mormons ran a few years ago.
The majority of Bella takes place in the space of a day and a half. A restaurant on the streets of New York is preparing for a big meal, the boss ordering all the staff around. We see a young woman at the drugstore, then at home, taking a pregnancy test -- Nina is a waitress at the restaurant, and when she finally gets to work, the boss complains that this is her third time late, and she's fired. The chef at the restaurant (the boss's brother), witnesses this. Nina runs off, but she's dropped something, and the chef picks it up and runs after her. He spends the day with Nina, and being a friend to her in time of need will change both of their lives...
A great deal of the artfulness of this movie is how much is left out of the story of the two main characters. The chef had a major disaster in his life a few years before, an accident that derailed his life plans and it still haunts him. We see the incident in some relatively brief flashbacks. And Nina tells a bit of her life story, but without a lot of detail. The ending is also very subtle and not completely fleshed out. It only shows what you need to see for the emotional resolution of the story.
Bella won the Toronto International Film Festival's People's Choice Award in 2006, an honor given to films like Chariots of Fire, Strictly Ballroom, Hotel Rwanda, The Princess Bride, and The Big Chill. It deserves to be in that league.
If this isn't enough to recommend it, it is also a family movie, without sleaze and language, featuring characters who model the values of family, respect, kindness, and helping others.
Rating:  -
Two films that tackle the difficult question of how to deal with an unwanted pregnancy are the 2006 film Bella, starring Eduardo Verastegui and Tammy Blanchard, and the 1963 classic Love With The Proper Stranger, starring Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood. Both films are wonderful for different reasons. I give Bella 4 stars overall. I give Love With The Proper Stranger 5 stars simply for the script and acting, which are superb.
In Bella, directed by Alejandro Gomez Monteverde, Verastegui is a cook that has to overcome a tremendous setback: in a previous time of life, he was a soccer star that was involved in a car accident on the day he was turning pro - ending his career when he has to do time in prison. Now he is working in his older brother's restaurant, just trying to "find himself." Meanwhile, one of the waitresses in the restaurant (Blanchard) is fired for being late and supposedly drunk, but it turns out she's pregnant. She decides an abortion is the only way to deal with the issue because she will not bring a child into a loveless life like hers. But Verastegui is her friend, and will not allow her to deal with this crisis alone. Over the course of a day spent together, Verastegui shows her a lot of love, helping her find a new job and taking her to meet his family - one that is very proud and rich in heritage. Blanchard has no family, so the love she experiences with his overwhelms her - and changes her.
In Love With The Proper Stranger, directed by Robert Mulligan, McQueen is a musician that has to face the responsibility of having gotten a girl he can barely remember (Natalie Wood) pregnant; and Wood has to decide what to do about it so her overly protective Italian-American family doesn't go berserk. She and McQueen decide to seek an abortion during a time when that was illegal; so it means sneaking around alley ways and dealing with less-than-reputable people. When they come face-to-face with the horrors involved, they change their mind. Plan B for Wood is to marry another man that is in love with her (Tom Bosley), making him fully aware of what he's getting with the deal, but keeping the truth from her family. In the mean time, McQueen has fallen in love with her. But they have a hard time getting along. And Wood has told him that if she can't have "banjos and bells" from him - a line from the fantastic theme song by Jack Jones - she's not interested.
Both of these films take place in New York City and both are beautifully shot - Bella in very strong color; and Love With The Proper Stranger in black-and-white by Milton R. Krasner, who was nominated for an Oscar. Both are also comedies - which is interesting, considering the subject matter. But it takes humor to cut the seriousness of an issue like abortion. Both couples seriously contemplate abortion, but both change their minds because of love. The big difference between these two films, other than the time periods in which they are set, is the fact that in Bella, the child factors in to the decision; whereas, in Love With The Proper Stranger, it does not. As a matter of fact, the expectant child is not even mentioned, which is strange. The only thing McQueen and Wood are concerned about are their own lives; both Verastegui and Blanchard are concerned primarily with the child.
So, you could say that Bella is pro-life, and Love With The Proper Stranger is pro-abortion; except that in both cases, the couples end up doing the right thing. And in Love With The Proper Stranger, the parents of the child end up together. Both films are interesting from the standpoint of how the couples deal with the question both personally and culturally; and both are interesting from the standpoint of how they change. As I said, it is love that changes them in both cases.
These are great films for mature audiences. Bella is PG-13 and Love With The Proper Stranger is unrated. As far as awards, Love With The Proper Stranger was nominated for 5 Oscars, including Best Actress for Natalie Wood and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay for Arnold Schulman. Being an independent film, Bella won the Heartland Film Festival Crystal Heart Award, and the Grand Prize for a Dramatic Feature; MovieGuide's Faith and Freedom Award, and their Grace Award for Eduardo Verastegui's acting; and Toronto International Film Festival's People's Choice Award.
Waitsel
Rating: -
What an enjoyable film. Bella conveys a beautiful message of love without judgments of any kind. I found the film to be very moving and positive.
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I thought Bella was a very beautiful story. One reviewer said, "It is a love story without a romance," and I think that very accurately portrays what to expect from the movie. If you want to watch a movie that will not only entertain you but move your soul this is a good pick.
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