Mamacruz

Saw this at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival

"Mamacruz" is a story about a religious grandmother learns how to use the internet. When she accidentally comes across pornography, she is faced with a dilemma. Director Patricia Ortega does a pretty good job presenting a simple cheesy story with a great performance from the main lead.

The film explores older generations trying to experience youth and excitement as the film does a pretty good job exploring these concepts. The idea of an older woman experiencing a new sexual awakening is a pretty funny concept. Throughout, there are gorgeous camerawork, production designs, and nice characters that were explored through the film's narrative. The characters felt nature and funny to watch as you see what happens from beginning to end.

It's not perfect as some of the pacing could be improved. There were some dialogue moments that felt a little forced and unfitting for the characters. But the overall experiencing of watching this film felt good because of the non-serious tone and direction it took.

Rating: B+

Mamacruz took another look at the recently often used theme of how we look at sex life and sex drive in elderly age (e.g. Good Luck to you Leo Grande). Personally I appreciated how this film approached the topic of sexual awakening very gently, slowly and almost bashfully, but at the same time in detail an in depth. The story of how we might not feel as beautiful as we get older and maybe even our partners don't want us physically as they used to is a very relatable realistic theme, that can concern anyone in today's society. I must highlight the performnace of the protagonist, who created her character with elegance and truth, captured the riff between her new found self and her old conservative christian self and managed to play out the scenes concernig sex without vulgarity. All in all this is aactually a kind of a feel good film with deep message behind it.