Strangley compelling and engaging, Nona is a film that you can't half watch whist doing someting else; it's a film you need to watch completely and concentrate on, despite the inactivity and slow-moving gently soporific nature of this film.
Written and directed by Michael Polish, this film doesn't know what "genre" it wants to be. Perhaps that's what the director intended, but it does give out some strange mixed messages. At first it is perhaps a political documentary on the state of the local mafia in an as yet un-named Latin American country; then perhaps it is a love story, which quickly turns into the slowest moving road movie ever as they travel to America; then we have docu-drama and realism, but none of these ideas seem to dominate, and so despite it being excellently acted and watchable, [although we never really and truly buy into the on/off romantic moods of the two protagonists], the whole film is uncompromisingly slow, moody, thoughtful and reflective.
Some of the points I made just after watching it, which would have aided my understanding and enjoyment include..
1. The vast majority of the film is in Spanish with subtitles. Realistic but more difficult to watch.
2. The very beginning of the film is the film's ending (clever!) - although knowing she is from San Pedro Sula simply isn't enough. Most people in the UK won't have the faintest idea where that is - or even if it is a real place. I had to look it up to find it was a city in Honduras. It also has the reputation as being the most dangerous city to live in in the world. Knowing this right at the start would have helped enormously.
3. The boat journey didn't make sense. After travelling by bus / coach into Mexico, the next leg of their journey is by hired yacht - and the male protaginst is an expert yachtsman it seems - and so we expect the point of entry to the US to be on the Gulf Of Mexico, perhaps a port in Texas; and yet the next shot is the two of them in Tijuana; the border town on the Pacific coast just south of San Diego, so this didn't make sense to me. Tijuana being, as far as I remember the first and only town / city to be given a name in their entire journey.
4. Why would a teenage girl - whose very aware - suddenly decide to take the journey to see her mum in America with a complete stranger in the first place? Obviously there wouldn't be a film if she didn't, but it seemed a little too easy / convenient.
It's a harrowing story, and it is one that is well known. Young, good-looking, and most importantly poor and vulnerable teenagers and young ladies are seduced, coerced, even drugged and smuggled to end up as sex workers or slaves by ruthless individuals who make a lot of money out of it. The story here tells us nothing that we didn't alreasy know. Perhaps that is why Polish decided to try and tell the story from a different (more humane or personal?) perspective. We half expect a blossoming romance between our two protagonists (Sulem Calderon as the naive and trusting Nona and Jesy McKinney as the ruthless, young travelling musician type, Hecho). Right from their very first "coincidental" meeting there is flirting and chemistry, and since the film is a film and not a documentary, we somehow half expect Hecho to come clean at the US border, and tell her he loves her.. as they both forgive each other and walk off into the sunset. However, the extremely naive - nay stupid Nona - allows him to blindfold her, and tell her a load of obvious nonsense about being transferred several times before arriving at her final destination and that he'll be waiting for her at the other end. If alarm bells hadn't been ringing for her prior to this (and they should have been!), then here is where she should have run away; but she doesn't, and I have no idea why.
Yes the final scenes are shocking, but somehow they don't shock anywhere near as much as they should. After the blindfold scene we know what we are going to see. Ir's a depressing end and we do feel genuine disgust for Hecho now, but do we fully invest our sympathies with Nona... I'll leave you to decide.
The film gives Kate Bosworth top billing. She appears as the interrogating police officer in the last three minutes of the film.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 26/8/20
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