This is a frustrating film to watch because it is extremely claustrophobic. After the opening scene, the entire film takes place inside a small apartment. There is little by way of plot. There are many scenes of the young woman talking on the phone with her mother and brother. She also gets visits from her brother. Mostly, however, she gets visited by a man who started as a one night pickup, but the pair starts developing a sado-masochistic relationship that becomes increasingly disturbing. This is an impressive film debut for writer-director Rowe, who favors long takes and a stationary camera, an approach that is effective in conveying the loneliness of the protagonist.

Watched this last night with my wife and we both agreed it is perhaps the most accurate depiction of modern life of young adulthood that either of us have ever seen. This film is to that lonely time of self discovery in the mid to late 20's that Apocaplyse Now is to the Vietnam War. Not only is the depiction of sex graphic and frank but it isn't sexy. And there is about the best explanation for U.S. Mexico relations -and the Mexican gov. in general (or lack thereof)- in this film that I have ever heard: i.e. the monetization of security. If you have seen and liked the films of Carlos Reygadas, Fernando Eimbcke and Arturo Ripstein then you will understand the type of aesthetic at work here. If on the other hand your idea of Mexican cinema is Vicente Fernandez or the Santos lucha libre films you are in for a rude awakening.

A bleak study of loneliness set in a claustrophobic apartment in Mexico City featuring a fearless performance, or a masochistic one, take your pick, by Monica Del Carmen as Laura. Laura spends most of her days and nights in her joyless apartment spying on her neighbors and inventing relationships with them in her mind. She occasionally goes out to clubs and brings home men for unrewarding sex. They invariably leave her lonelier than before. She meets Arturo (Armando Hernandez) who brings a sado-masochistic satisfaction to her sexual life. Meanwhile she ominously checks off the dates of her calendar toward the end of the month marked in red. This film is as explicit as it needs to be and Laura's world is not easy to view. Director Michael Rowe has achieved the film he sat out to make, I'm sure, and the totality of the realism can be uncomfortable as it should be. By setting the movie entirely in the small apartment and by the astonishingly natural performance of Ms. Del Carmen, you feel, smell, and know this movie like it was a fever dream. You want to give Laura a big hug at the end. Not for the squeamish or near squeamish.

This is by far, the worst movie i've ever seen!!! If i would wanted to see a porn movie... i would rather have accessed into any free porn site and for sure, i could have seen a better quality of BDSM porn, than the vulgar, grotesque and meningless one this movie shows...Mexican films have become an easy way to watch meaningless sex, drugs and violence... nothing further than that... The topic just doesn't matter, there is always at least one of those in Mexican films...Plus, The acting of Año bisiesto's principal character is terrible! The phone calls she makes to brother and friend Raul, are just out of credibility... Cheap production, cheap direction, cheap creativity, cheap acting, cheap story... very expensive the cost of loosing time this way...