Joel, une enfance en Patagonie

Muy buena ambientación, actuación y tratamiento de dos temas importantes y de actividad

A couple composed of Cecilia and Diego has long been waiting for the possibility of adopting a child. The film begins with great news: their file has retained the attention of the agency with Joel, a nine-year-old boy whose father is recently incarcerated. Once accepted, the adopted parents discover that Joel suffers from a significant delay in his schooling and, because he involuntarily witnessed the drug traffic of his father, he acts as a drug dealer in the school playground. Oops! The school and then the kids' parents will react quickly and everyone will have to choose a side, in favor or not of Joel's expelling. Cecilia and Diego will also have to choose...

Saw this at the Rotterdam film festival 2019, where it was part of the Big Screen Competition (another film got the price, alas). It was a mixture of real world dilemma's and believable people. A compelling drama, very well acted/casted, and all intermediate steps were very good to follow. Moreover, not everything was predictable, keeping us interested all the way. There were no good or bad people. All meant well for their children, if not the best. That is the reason that the adoptive mother (as she stated) ran out of arguments when trying to talk individually with the loudest protestors. Similarly, the last couple she spoke with, where man and wife disagreed, both had proper arguments to support their respective opinions. Despite some opinions were blown out of proportion, it was clear where they came from, making it difficult for us to prove them right of wrong.

To top the uneasy choices to be made: Even the adoptive couple disagreed. One parent found it more important to remain in peace with the village, given that it was very relevant for his work. On the other hand, the mother wanted to sue everyone who decided to shift the problem away to a different school in an adjacent village. I concur with the feelings of the mother, despite I understand the motives of the father very well (grown up in a small village myself, so I see the merits of his opinion).

All in all, I could do nothing else than scoring a maximum 5 for the audience award. Others seem to disagree, as this movie eventually got a mediocre 50th place (out of 162) with score 4.409 (out of 5). I assume that the odd mixture of issues raised by the story, are not all that easy to digest. Both the opinions of the adoptive parents as well as the parents of the other pupils are understandable from their viewpoint, and I cannot be sure what my stance would be when in the position of the parents involved. I consider it a complement for the film makers that they were able to stir up those dilemmas within the viewers, thus arriving at a mixed score. It is not easy for everyone in the audience to judge the quality of the movie and keep it strictly separate from the actions and opinions of the main protagonists.

Diego and Cecile, an Argentinian couple living in Terra del Fuego (where Diego is employed as a foreman in a foresting operation) and unable to have children, are informed, to their somewhat cautious joy, that a boy is available for adoption.

Although the boy is older than they had originally been informed and appears to come from a troubled background, he is tenderly accepted into their household and it is clear that the adoptive parents are really doing their best to give him a loving home and to see to his schooling, which is somewhat lacking.

However, things take a decided turn for the worse when it develops that the boy, who has spent his youth being brought up by various relatives, at least one of whom is currently serving a sentence in prison, has been bragging to his schoolmates about taking (and possibly dealing) drugs and engaging in other criminal behavior (it it never quite clear how much the boy is assuming the role of his uncle and how much of his bragging is actually true).

The parents of the other children learn of his bragging and are up in arms. The discovery by Cecile of what is happening, the reactions of both adoptive parents and the way in which this affects their relationship with the other parents is what makes up the development of the film.

It is a well-acted and directed film, which portrays in a sensitive manner an intriguing situation in which everybody is right and nobody is wrong. Unlike what might have been a Hollywood-type treatment in which righteousness prevails over ignorant prejudice, the genius of the film is that everybody's point of view is expressed in an entirely good faith manner, with every parent genuinely seeking what is best for their children. The viewer is left with the very disquieting feeling that the manner in which (s)he would have reacted in the same situation would depend solely on which child they were the parent of -- which may be exactly what the author intended.