Aristóteles Y Dante Descubren Los Secretos Del Universo

I am so grateful I got the chance to watch this film through TIFF's digital screening. I have followed this movie's journey since 2018 and it was surreal to sit and finally enjoy this story, made so beautifully and with so much love.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is tender and real. It doesn't only show the characters, it sees them. It is gorgeously constructed with dreamy cinematography by Akis Konstantakopoulos, and a beautiful soundtrack to match. Max and Reese truly understood their characters. They captured the quirks, the deadpan jokes, and the mannerisms of teenage boys figuring themselves out. They are awkward, they are silly, they are young. They don't know who they are and they piece it together on screen, in small stumbles and in leaps. They are the perfect representations of Aristotle and Dante.

It is written with love, it is filmed with love, it is directed with love. After watching for the second time in one night, with a headache from crying, I felt like love had been given back to me, too. When a story is so beautiful, it demands to be seen over and over, and this is one of those. It feels like a huge, crushing, beautiful hug. Both fans of the book and those who have never picked it up will love this adaptation; it holds something for everyone.

There is something truly special about this film. It's sweet, it's cute, it pulls at your heartstrings, it ALMOST made my eyes water, and I loved every second of it! Max Pelayo (Aristotle) took this role and tan away with it. He did a remarkable job and I was genuinely impressed. His acting career going forward looks very promising and I'm excited to see what's next for him. Reese Gonzales was also good, but there are a few moments here and there where it felt like the acting was overdone. I picked up that Dante was meant to be this fun, charming, outgoing, quirky individual, but some scenes just seemed unnatural. That's me being very knick-picky though; he's still a young actor. It's definitely one to watch!

This was one of the best, if not outright the best book to movie adaptations I have ever seen. It had been a couple of years since I read the book so I really only remember major parts of the plot. However, after seeing this movie and immediately thinking it was one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen, I decided to reread the book. This movie reorders some of the events but in a way that helps with pacing. There's really only one major plot change from the book that I won't go into detail but I feel works well for movie in a way the book dealt with it. I would recommend this movie to all my friends and look forward to owning it to watch on repeat.

This is a beuatiful adaptation of Benjamin Alire Sáenz's book. There will be those who quibble with some of the choices, but considering the sheer challenge of transferring such a successful book, especially an emotional one like this one, onto the screen, this is an excellent take on the novel. It's a slow burn for Max Pelayo to truly come into his own as Ari: this is due to the character's own evolution, all repressed feelings and anger that slowly surface, along with the realization of who he is. It's a joy watching the actor rise to the occasion. Reese Gonzales immediately captures Dante, partially because of the insightful casting but also because Dante is well-defined from the start in the book. The two actors play off each other with great ease.

The director, Aitch Alberto, brings a careful hand to everything in this film, and you feel it. One choice that worked well was making Ari's aunt Ophelia more present. In the novel, she's almost like an idea, but here she's a presence onscreen and a reflection of Ari's own repressed self. That was a wise choice, along with keeping Dante's attack "off-stage" to avoid the sensationalism.

This is a film about two young men who are loners, in extremely different ways, and who simply love each other--almost immediately. By the time Ari comes to terms with himself and what he is feeling, the viewer, like the character, can finally exhale.

I wanted to watch this movie for so long and just didn't know where to see it. As a fan of the books I think I expected a lot from the movies and I won't say it was bad, I was just disappointed. The film has no flow and it's like they took chapters from the book independent of each other and just made scenes from it without considering how everything merges together. The dialogue was okay I guess but the chemistry was so off and the acting was so novice like this was a YouTube made film. Another issue I had was the 'experiment', the movie portrayal of the experiment was completely different from the book. What I love about Ari was he was nvr homophobic to Dante, although he was going through his own internalized crisis, he never said or did those things to Dante. Dante's portrayal also seemed so different from what I had in my head but they captured Ari perfectly. The pace of the movie was so quick, 3 scenes in and we were already at the middle of the book. Bless the costume designers for putting Dante in the gayest outfits ever.