This movie was very intricate, to the point that I was confused at times, especially in the beginning. There was very little use of music also, which made the majority of the movie feel empty in a way. I think that it perfectly paralleled Ariel's feelings toward his estranged father. He felt a lot of animosity toward his father because it seemed like he left Ariel and his mother without a valid reason. Since Ariel was the main character in this film, it caused the viewers to take his side, and sympathize with him. That is why I found myself feeling hatred toward his father as well, and when he appeared at the race, I felt that something terrible was going to happen since I viewed him as a bad guy. This opinion of him was formed too prematurely, and at the end when I discovered the truth about Ariel's father, I felt remorseful. It is definitely important to keep an open mind when you are watching the movie, especially for the first time.

This slice of life is set on the old commercial neighborhood of Once in Buenos Aires, right after Argentina's economic crisis of 2001. Set mostly among the Jewish community in the neighborhood (though members of other communities, like Bolivians and Koreans, also appear), the main protagonist is Ariel Makaroff, a twenty something guy, who helps his mother run a lingerie shop in a galeria (that is, a very seedy and shabby department store). His father having emigrated to Israel years ago to fight one of the wars there, Ariel longs to emigrate to the developed world, specifically Poland, ironically from where his grandmother escaped sixty years ago because of antisemitism. To impress the Polish consul in order to get the passport, the Jewish man tries to name several famous Poles, but can only come up with the (then) Pope. This movie tries to paint the life of a middle class whose dreams of upscale progress became shattered after recurrent economic crisis, but it ends up being less interesting than it should be; still, a not totally bad effort.

This flick is like the Blair Witch Project meets an Argentinian Woody Allen.The director uses hand held shots for most of the movie that, when combined with subtitles, brings one to the brink of emesis. The plot is all over the place and unsure of which identity the main character searches. The protagonist bounces from one shallow character to another looking for what? His father? His religion? His nationality? All of the above? Without clarity of motivation at the character's core, this movie does nothing but try to pull sentimental heart strings with the ultimate understanding and reuniting of father and son at the end. By the time this point is reached however, you just want to make sure you haven't puked on your shoes. All the motion, both of the camera shots and the characters, generates a story as dull, trite and depressing as the setting in which is was shot.Your time is better spent standing in line at the post office to mail back decent Netflix movies. A 3 out of 10 is generous.

This film has been compared in the press to an early Woody Allen feature, and the comparison is a just one, not however for the presence of comic moments (there really aren't many such), but for the incredible self-absorption of the hero, Ariel. Abandoned by his father at an early age and bored with his life as a salesman in his mother's lingerie shop located in a Buenos Aires mall, the moody Ariel longs for what seems like hours of screen time to escape to the necessarily greener fields of Europe. Ariel is played by handsome Daniel Hendler who unfortunately gives a pretty one dimensional and ultimately boring performance, ranging from the gloomy to the sorely beset. To be fair to Hendler, though, his role seems deliberately limited to such a narrow range by the screenplay itself, which finds his inability to smile apparently richly comic. This essentially stale coming of age story is further burdened by an incessantly jerky, headache inducing hand-held camera, and the presence of numerous quirky characters doing cameos in the manner of American sit-coms. A forgettable "art" film.