Gestación

This is a true story of what a young girl went through when finding out she was pregnant while still a student. While there are many movies of teen pregnancy out there, this one shows the story of a girl in a very catholic country. There are situations that leave you in disbelief, but that is exactly why the film had such an impact, as that is what happened to the girl behind the story.

There are characters in the movie that are very memorable. The film definitely made the city a character of the movie and it plays a part in the story. In Costa Rica, we definitely felt connected to the film because of how it displayed our way of life, our lingo and our capital.

This is a bad film. If you must see it, rent it. Not worth the paying price.

The story is pretty straightforward: young couple gets pregnant, then decides what to do about their precarious situation. This story has been told so many times it's not even amusing anymore. In fact, the writer of the script takes advantage of this fact (or completely ignores it - it's anybody's guess) and includes some pretty unrealistic situations in the film.

But the point of all this is that the movie is not made to tell a story - it's made to sell Costa Rican film to the outside world. And make it look professional in the process (If you check out the trailer, it in fact elicits more emotion than the movie and looks nicer too...). so what we have here is a film that looks good on screen with a poorly written script that makes your head spin. I wanted to get out of the theater 30 min into it...

As an American who has a deep love for Costa Rica, I found Gestation to be a wonderful movie that captured some of the soul of Costa Rica. The look, the language, the feel were pure Tico. Teenage pregnancy is a common theme, but it was handled deftly in this movie addressing many of the complications from economic disparity to religion to family and social impact. The movie is very sweet and has real heart. I am not a native speaker but I watched it in Spanish and enjoyed the pure Tico dialect. I thought the casting was superb and the actors could probably work anywhere. I would hope to see more film work coming out of this beautiful but tiny country.