Simón de la montaña

Simón (Lorenzo Ferro) likes to spend time with young adults with intellectual disabilities and away from his troubled home with his mother and her boyfriend. The problem is, Simón does not have any disability. His is an act.

Directed by Federico Luis, Simón de la montaña is a character study of a 22-year-old young adult whose intention to be part of that group where his newfound friends are seems to be so important as to devise a plan to get a disability certificate. When Simón is not working with his stepfather Agustín (Agustín Toscano) as a moving helper, he is spending time with Pehuen (Pehuen Pedre) and Colo (Kiara Supini). Pehuen sees through Simón and tries to help him by training him to get the certificate at the civil registry. Colo, on the other hand, sees Simón as more than a friend and her intentions as having him as a boyfriend will have both of them navigate different situations.

It is clear the film's greatest asset is Lorenzo Ferro's performance. He manages to capture in a nuanced manner the traits characterizing these conditions. Something that has a greater impact once he is seen acting in his true self. And despite its interesting premise, Simón de la montaña is more expository than anything else. Even if it is engaging and captivating by reason of its atmosphere, we cannot say it is a profound exercise in exploration of a character's persona since his intentions are never hinted at. This should not be mistaken with the writer's intention of allowing the audience to fill in the blank spaces, because the reasons behind his behavior are never hinted at in any way. This renders the movie more as a platform for questions than a study of disabilities or psychology. The cost of this is that it is difficult to create a connection with the story, sympathize with the characters, or be fully invested, since we are never let in.

Director Federico Luis has an interesting concept and intention to explore the awkwardness of loneliness and disabilities amongst people. With good sound designs and atmosphere, Luis does offer an interesting concept about the themes of friendship, disability, disadvantages and the surroundings of all the themes together.

It reminded me a lot of the movie "The Idiots". Where it explored disability individuals and the surroundings of everything. However, despite a good intention, Luis never really fully took advantage of it's concept as the writing at times feels slim, and the characters are never really given full motivations, which makes it a bit difficult to fully connect or understood the purpose of them.

But the strong performance from Lorenzo Ferro, good direction and atmosphere does offer some good insights to this movie.