I couldn't belive the review with 1-3 stars. Either They have never watched a good movie before nor really conservative about church and religion. No one who is watching this movie with a pure heart in that innocent girl's eyes can not criticize it that harsh. And i think the scenario and acting also great. I don't like drama but this is my favourite movie and i recommend it to everyone.

It is hard to sit through "Camino" at times. The film, which is supposed to be based on a real incident in Spain, was adapted by its director, Jarvier Fesser. The basic premise is how blind faith can interfere with medical science causing horrible results. At the center, the young girl's family were members of the Opus Dei, an organization of ultra religious branch of the Catholic church that supposedly deals with attaining sainthood in everyone by acceptance and endurance to human suffering. Although it has nothing to do with Christian Science, we could not help comparing both types of practices, even if the latter one does not accept anything to do with the treatment of ailments by the medical profession.The story about this family happened fifteen years before 2001, when the action supposedly start. We are taken to meet Gloria and Jose, a couple in Madrid. They have two daughters, the eldest, Nuria, wants to become a nun. The youngest, the sunny Camino, is going to a catholic school. Gloria is a fervent follower of the teachings of the Opus Dei; her blind faith is a rare quality for anyone in the times we are living. Camino is a typical girl with aspirations and dreams, like any other of her friends in school. Tragedy strikes when Camino begins to suffer a debilitating illness that lands her in a hospital. The problem is a tumor that is pressing against her spinal chord and threatens to paralyze her. Gloria and Jose worry about what their daughter future will be. The mother insists Camino to offer her sufferings to God. When the operation does not get the results expected, and Camino keeps getting worse, it is decided to transfer her to Pamplona to be near Gloria's sister and Nuria, whose convent is there as well. Unfortunately, nothing can be done to save the young girl's life.Mr. Fesser goes after the machinations and manipulations behind the scenes of the branch of Catholicism that insists that faith will triumph over medical science. The only victim is Camino. The director gets an inspired performance from Nerea Camacho, who plays the sweet Camino, and Carmen Elias that appears as Gloria. This is no easy film to watch because of its subject matter as we witness the deterioration in front of our eyes of the young girl whose life is taken from her. Also in the cast, Mariano Venancio, and Manuela Velles.

It is such a superb film. Very sad and depressing, but an excellent film-making and a profound, intelligent script. I can guess that the modern Spanish society does not care much for its catholic Church, otherwise this film would not have received several Goya awards. Because principally the film is an anti-organized religion/organized Church manifesto. It dares to ask the fundamental question: if God exists and is good, why so many awful things and suffering happens to good people?? If the answer cannot be found or makes no sense, then it would mean that there is no God, really. At least not a personal, omnisicient God from the New Testament, that cares about what is going on in our world, knows and is everywhere. The film also portrays clergymen as hypocrytical vultures and convents as sects. The title character is played by a talented and charming girl in early teens who I am sure will grow to be a gorgeous and brilliant actress, while the passages between reality and her troubling dreams are brilliantly made.

It is difficult to make an objective assessment of this movie taking into account the strong criticism of the Opus cult that underlies the movie.Camino is a fictionalized biography of Alexia Gonzalez Barros, a teeneger who died in 1985 after a short but painful illness. The director changes the main issue of the movie: the love that the real Alexia felt for Jesus is turned into a love for a real kid called Jesus (a common name in Spain). Is that mockery? It's difficult to say. Fesser transforms the love for a heavenly Jesus for a down-to-earth love for a kid. Nobody in the movie notices this except the father. I can understand the family didn't like the idea and, if as the director says, this is not a movie based in her story, to say at the beginning that the movie is based in real facts and to dedicate the movie to Alexia is misleading and, I fear, marketing oriented.Having said that, if you watch the film as it is, forgetting the facts that could support part of the movie, you will probably like it. Camino, the main character, is extremely well played and you cannot feel but strong sympathy for her. The narrative discourse of the movie, however, it is sometimes too affected by the continuous dreams of the girl, that at time are almost ridiculous in their cinematography.On the other hand, the movie is a good portrait of how the Opus works. Its sexism, its demand for obedience above all, its cult and sect ways of working at taking people from their families, that is portrayed honestly. The Opus characters, however, are mostly unidimensional, which makes them less believable.All in all, a good movie difficult to forget, not a masterpiece, with very good acting, that would have been better without marketing allusions to a real character that has little to do with the portrayed one. It is a film about love, a religious love that the director and writer makes terrestial.