(Flash Review)There is more sap in this movie than Maple Trees in the Fall. The blurb teaser was more interesting than this whole movie, which was about two people whose lives become inexplicably connected. Usually, that's an intriguing premise. Not here where a head chef working for his brother's restaurant decides to get involved with a server who got fired for being late too many times. An employee for four years, once she is fired he suddenly decides to fall for her. Give me a break! And later learns she was having morning sickness and that was her reason for being late. Then the sap starts to flow. Dialog that is all Hallmark Card stale is delivered by two actors who never emotionally connect on screen. Ubiquitous sappy scene after sappy scene with music that tells you how you should feel and with an ending that is so poorly written that is makes ZERO sense. The Village Voice reviewer said it perfectly "Manages to be utterly predictable without making any sense at all." Avoid at ALL COSTS!!

Life can change in one day. "Bella" directed by Alejandro Monteverde proves that ordinary life can be moved both positively and negatively and end up in results that you would never had imagined. Eduardo Veraestegui plays Jose, a skilled soccer player who while driving distracted accidentally hits a little girl and takes her life. After serving a sentence in prison, Jose works at his brothers restaurant and meets his colleague Nina (Tammy Blanchard). Nina is pregnant with a child she does not want to have, and comes from a rough relationship with the father. Nina also has many other issues. The two form a friendship that lasts long and is very heartfelt and powerful at times. This film deals with the theme of redemption and chance very well. Jose with his guilty conscience looks for a brighter future and finds it through Nina, but unexpectedly. Alejandro Monteverde shows us how easy it is to find solutions to problems in life, and how powerful the gift of friendship is. The connection between the two characters change in quality in life is also brilliantly written. Nina unexpectedly getting pregnant and then meeting Jose is a parallel to Jose accidentally killing the girl and meeting Nina. Creative writing is touched with great acting and gorgeous cinematography to make this heartwarming tale an inspiration and a masterpiece of film-making.

I'm a lover of most films and usually I'm not picky or critical, however, this movie was such a waste of time. The movie is about a former star soccer player who ends up being a chef who works at his brothers restaurant. We're not sure why things didn't work out as a soccer player, however, we get this impression, through his wilderness appearance and his annoying sombre persona, that it must have ended tragically, which it did. The story evolves into a relationship between the brother and a fired waitress from the restaurant. For some reason, he decides to leave the restaurant during dinner time and go to the beach with the waitress, who recently found out she was pregnant. They then take the train, go to his parents home, and wonder about aimlessly. All of a sudden, the movie fast forwards a few years and we're at the dramatic ending, which we're not sure how we got too. This rating is an insult to the great IMDb which is usually dead on with it's ratings, not here.

Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu's success with Babel in 2006 overshadowed the remarkable debut of his countrymen Alejandro Gomez Monteverde, who wasn't even 30 when he released Bella, a New York drama about a chef who helps a maid overcome a crisis of consciousness. The movie won all the awards it was nominated for (but didn't make it to the Oscar race) and it earned, with a budget of $3.3 million dollars, more than $10 million in the USA, making it one of the highest-grossing independent films of the year. Then it kind of disappeared.José (Eduardo Verástegui), a chef working in his brother Manny's restaurant abandons his post during the noon rush when Manny (Manny Perez) fires the maid Nina (Tammy Blanchard) for being late too many times. Nina doesn't even have a chance to explain that she's found out she's pregnant; the entrepreneurial Manny, more obsessed with the appearance of his thriving restaurant than with the problems of his staff, can't care less. And José, in a spontaneous act of compassion, leaves with her.Walking rather aimlessly through the streets of New York, the two open their hearts to each other and talk about their personal problems. Nina isn't ready to be a mother, and now that she's jobless she's even less thrilled about it. She's a single, the father doesn't care about her, she doesn't want her child to grow fatherless like she did and she doesn't have anyone to help her. Under the circumstances, an abortion seems logical.José has his own demons to talk about. A former soccer player – he is Mexican after all – he was on the road to success when in a car accident he ran over a little girl, killing her and his joy for soccer and life in general along with her. Now hiding under a beard that makes him look like a hobo (or Christ, take your pick), José spends his insignificant life cooking for his brother's restaurant.José takes the distressed Nina to his parents' house, where Nina gets some much needed love from a surrogate family. Family is an important thing in the movie. Nina has no one, whereas José, in spite of his tragedy, has his parents and brothers, even if they argue like families do, to rely on.The movie deals a great deal with the question of whether or not to abort, and I find the treatment of each side of the argument reasonable. On the one hand I can understand that José, the Christic figure, is on the side of life, anxious to redeem himself for the life he took away, and if he can convince Nina to have her child, he may exorcise his demons. Nina, on the other hand, a single mom without a job and incapable of trusting people, can't imagine having a child if she can't offer her a happy life. And in her present situation, she has little means to do so.I've read a few reviews attacking this movie for its pro-life, Christian themes. I'm no religious sympathiser or expert, but when did defending life become an exclusive Christian matter and not just common decency? Some in the left see this movie just as right wing propaganda against pro-choice. Now I'm quite sure of my position about abortion, which is that women should do whatever they want with their bodies. However I appreciated the balanced discussion José and Nina have about this. Abortion isn't just a moral or religious matter, but also social and economical, and the movie explores the movie from all those angles to show the difficulty of arriving at a decision.If I can say something about Bella is that it has gravitas. The characters seem weighed down by their problems, burdened by their moral crises. The movie doesn't deny the right to choice, but it shows how arriving at a decision should involves intellectual and emotional effort.José favours adoption, which is perhaps a more humane solution. But even so we can put ourselves in Nina's shoes and ask: everyone I've know has been unfair to me, betrayed me or walked out of my life; love is a rare thing; why should I trust a child, who I may or may not love, with strangers who may treat it the way I was treated? These are just some of the difficult questions the movie urges us to consider. And yet the movie is uplifting. Unlike other independent movies, Bella doesn't wallow in cynicism or bleakness. The movie displays its indie status in other ways: its candid discussion of mature themes, a focus on characterisation and dialogue, and an attention to realistic situations.I couldn't end this review without praising the movie's depiction of New York. Now how many movies have you seen where someone actually swipes a MetroCard through a subway turnstile? Where someone casually buys clothes in street tents? Where subway entertainers play music? Where a blind man sells paper flowers? Those tired of Hollywood's Big Apple as a mere agglomeration of tall buildings and busy streets (so generic that Toronto often doubles for it) will delight in this New York that contains a personality, colours and shapes seldom seen in modern movies, but which hearkens back to early Spike Lee (Do The Right Thing) or '70s movies like Taxi Driver and The Taking of Pelham 123.Monteverde created his own film company with Verástegui and slept in the actor's apartment to save money for this film. The sacrifices paid off with an intelligent, provocative and well-acted drama.