Héctor

Gracia Querejeta is one of the finest Spanish directors nowadays, and "Hector", her fourth film, won't disappoint the viewer. As in her previous pictures, Querejeta portrays the problems of a family in which the father figure is missing.

The high point of the movie is the work of the excellent actors, from the leading ones (Nilo Mur is charming as the title role, and Adriana Ozores is as efficient as ever as his aunt) to the supporting players, specially Unax Ugalde and Joaquín Climent.

Although the storyline can be extremely predictable, the overall sensation the viewer can obtain is that it is a very nice, touching film.

Gracia Querejeta is a great storyteller. The story in the movie is pretty simple but you get to feel and understand what every character is going through. Everything sounds believable and natural. Adriana Ozores is great playing Tere, who is the link between all the stories. The rest of the cast does a good work as well.

I've seen this movie 3 or 4 times. I was raised in Madrid and this movie brings me the feeling of being there again. The neighbourhood, the people, the relationships, the lifestyle...everything is very "Madrid".

Looking forward the next Gracia Querejeta's project.

Tere is a woman that lives quietly her life in the whereabouts of Madrid with her family. The death of her sister provokes that Héctor, her nephew, starts to live with them. This will cause Tere to remind some wounds from the past and the adaptation to a new way of life, with one more son. Hector, meanwhile, is a 16-year-old boy that seems to hide pain within and seems to have suffered a lot. The apparition of Martin, Hector's disappeared dad will make things worse, as Hector will have to choose between living with his new family and going to Mexico with his unknown father. This will cause, of course, Tere's world to become upside down and she will have to remake her points of view of life. The drama is convincing, the story is well settled and the way of telling to us the story is correct. But there's something wrong about the film, though Adriana Ozores plays a good part, none of the staff is a rival of her. That's the main problem of the film, none of the actors believe in her character and this makes the film a little disappointing, as you'd expect more, from the story. I think that the movie could have been better with better actors, but, well, it is not bad, anyway. Touching film, hard and well told. With better actors, probably very good, but just correct. Anyway, one of best Spanish films of 2004.

Actually "Hector" is the story of three weeks in the life of Tere (great Adriana Ozores) and of those that surround her. She has just lost her sister, but they had been not speaking to each other for three years. Now Tere will have to look after her dead sister's only son, Héctor, and apart from that she'll have to face some troubles with her husband and her daughter, but specially sh'ell have to face a deep inner change.

This is a film with a huge emotional charge, it is so reflexive and relies on the strength of the words and of the dialogs. Is there any weak point? Yes, there is one weak point in "Hector": as in many Spanish productions the younger actors does not rise the occasions, and the guy that plays Héctor looks rather unconvincing.

In short: one of the best Spanish movies of the last year.

*My rate: 8/10

This is a film about the complex histories and interrelationships among a small group of ordinary people in contemporary Madrid. Adolescent Hector becomes orphaned at age 16 when his drug addicted mother dies in an auto accident. He comes to live with his dead mother's sister, her husband and her daughter. Just as he is tentatively making his way into a new family, his Mexican father arrives on the scene. The father, who had abandoned Hector and his mother when the boy was an infant, arrives to woo him away. Will he go to Mexico with his father? Will he stay with his aunt's family? Director Gracia Querejeta makes us care very much what Hector's decision will be.