Territorio

I personally felt like watching this movie was a waste of time.

This movie has a promising premise, but fails to develop it properly and is very boring.

The film exposes that toxic couples who fail to do their part in the relationship are destined to fail, as well as exposes the toxic masculinity that still exists. The story is boring since the situations and conflicts that exist become problematic due to the way the characters deal with them, accompanied by a very notorious poor character development, causing you to not empathize with them. The main character is very annoying because of his way of being and the female character has no development, which makes her very superficial. The film also has unnecessary sex, the actors do their best despite how little they are given to work with. The ending falls short and is somewhat confusing.

The premise about this couple and their main conflict is very interesting but it is not exploited correctly or extensively in this film, which ends up being boring due to the lack of exploiting some interesting situations on this topic.

As "Territorio" (2020 release from Mexico; 94 min) opens, we are introduced to a married couple, Manuel and Lupe. They really want that first child, except that at some point they find out that Manuel is infertile. In a parallel story, Ruben is a new hire at the warehouse where Manuel is a foreman. At this point we are 10 minutes into the film.

Couple of comments: let me state upfront that I was not familiar with either the director or any of the lead performers. But I was indeed very charmed with the strong writing and direction of this movie. The movie is plot-heavy so the less said about that, the better. In the end I did not expect that this would evolve into an engaging, even strong, psychological drama that reflects on the choices people make, good or bad, and then having to live with the consequences.

I have no background as to a theatrical release of this movie (if any). But I did see it written up positively in the New York Times a few days ago, and that was good enough for me to check it out (it is currently streaming on HBO Max). Very glad I did. If you are in the mood for a top quality foreign movie with interesting psychological family aspects, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

Good, but sad to watch what people will do to each other when pressure mounts. If you have ever had a situation with a person and thought....if a chance meeting with this person would not have happened, what would my life be like? This film shows you that happiness is actually super fragile and could implode on you at any time due to something unexpected. I was angry with all three characters at the end.

Classical latin masculinity is displayed but reality kicks everyone and they sink in the loneliness of a life full of predjuice. A great film.