Directed by Daniela Goggi and based on the 2006 autobiographical bestseller of the same name by Cielo Latini, "Abzurdah" is a coming-of-age that follows Cielo (María Eugenia Suárez), a teenage girl, falling for Alejo (Esteban Lamothe), a man she met on the internet who is ten years older than her, and becoming obsessed with him. An unhealthy obsession that will find her in a delicate situation as she enters a path of self-destruction.
The voice of Cielo introduces us to her persona and narrates the story as it progresses, weaving everything together. Even if this technique might favor telling over showing, it makes it easy to follow and understand what the protagonist is experiencing. It becomes clear from the start that Cielo, who goes by the name Abzurdah on the internet, has something going on with Hogweed, Alejo's user name.
Message after message is being sent and being received from them as they communicate daily through chat. A relationship born on the internet that soon materializes in the flesh after they decide to meet each other. Alejo's interest in her is present from the start when he cannot stop looking at her, and she is experiencing all of the feelings of a first love and is more than interested in seeing her virtual friend again.
Eugenia Suárez is great at portraying Cielo and capturing the behavioral nuances her character experiences as she navigates her life. The predicaments revolving around her situation, her not being loved in return and how that virtual friend became the repository of an obsession, become the reason for violence to bloom and find in self-harm a valid vehicle to surface.
Even if the theme of a forbidden love due to an age gap and the obsession that can born out of it is interesting enough to justify a film, it becomes clear "Abzurdah" has more ambitious aspirations, and in the second half of the film, eating disorders are utilized to thematically explore how an obsession can morph but also how little details from an upbringing can have a cobra effect only to do nothing but harm.
By reason of its examination of bulimia and anorexia, the movie has its doses of scenes that are heartbreaking, making some sequences hard to watch because of their nature. Naturally, this is a testament of how successfully "Abzurdah" conveys these topics. Not only as something to be conscious about, but also to be moved.
