Quinceanera (2006)

Quinceañera is a really good movie.

It realistically approaches some major issues that can come up in a young person’s life. Quinceañera does not pretend that everyone gets their happy ending in the face of massively difficult and sad family and personal situations, but rather depicts the two main characters’ ways of coping with these problems with a refreshingly honest approach.

I hate movies where you feel like everything is horrible in the world and there’s just no point in living. What the heck, movie? The overwhelming surge of downer moments you shoved in my face combined with the fact that you wasted an hour and a half (or more) of my time on an ending that makes me slip into a mini-depression just becomes a double whammy of I’m never going to watch another movie by your writer/director again.

On the other hand, movies that pretend that in the end of any huge problem all the hard issues can be neatly tied up with a big red bow also irritate me. Seriously, Juno? Teen pregnancy is actually all a smug wry joke? What is wrong with you?

Quinceañera manages to take the very mature middle ground of saying yeah, life can hand you some pretty unfair situations but you know what? Life goes on and you can find ways to get through it. This alone would be enough for me to give this film a solidly positive review.

Serendipitously, I also enjoyed several other aspects of the film. I thought the film’s approach to the gentrification of the Echo Park area of LA was very interesting. I also liked the use of non-professional actors. And I thought the story and the characters were compelling and inspiring.

Overall: watch it. It made my month, movie-wise.