Mistura is a film that’s easy to root for, and sometimes that’s enough to carry it through. It helps when, right off the bat, we learn that Norma’s (Bárbara Mori) husband has absconded unexpectedly with another woman and she’s left reeling. Sure, she has a decent home in Lima in 1965, but she has no prior ambitions and only has a limited amount of time before she’s left essentially destitute. Her only resource is to start a fine dining restaurant within her own home and dedicate it to her parents’ French heritage, recreating the dishes she grew up loving and hoping to spread that love to those around her.
Unfortunately that love doesn’t catch on quite so easily, and the restaurant comes dangerously close to shuttering. It’s not until Norma begins to take the advice of her staff, and they begin to adopt the cultures and cuisines of their own backgrounds, that the restaurant really takes off. Ultimately, Mistura is a safely enjoyable period piece that doesn’t challenge much but goes down smoothly regardless. Mori is steady as the lead, and her relationship and chemistry with right hand man Oscar (Pudy Ballumbrosio) is an unvarnished bright spot. The restaurant didn’t change the world, or Peru, and neither will the film, and that’s okay.
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Admittedly, I watched Soft Leaves over a week ago, and not much has stuck with me in the intervening days. That probably says more about me than the film itself, but it’s a smartly assembled but sleepy film nonetheless. Writer-director Miwako Van Weyenberg’s feature debut film tackles a culture clash between a single family, and a little girl caught in the middle. When Yuna’s (Lill Berteloot) Swedish father suffers a serious accident, her estranged Japanese mother (who moved back to Japan after their divorce) moves in with her and her older brother Kai (Kaito Defoort) to take care of her.
Berteloot is the standout element of the film, playing a girl who’s wiser than her years but still innocent enough to made the occasional bad decision. Thankfully Van Weyenberg’s screenplay doesn’t insert drama where it doesn’t need to be, instead letting the cultural differences and the familial drama play out mostly naturally. Tristan Galand’s cinematography helps to add a wistful air of nostalgia, evoking the summer haze of foggy memories that may or may not be true. Soft Leaves won’t go down as the best film of the festival, nor is it the worst, but it’s hard not to wish it left a more lasting impression once it ends.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: Transplant feels, at best, like an updated version of Whiplash within the confines of a hospital. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the stakes within the former are certainly more crucial (heart surgery) than the latter (jazz music). But first-time feature director Jason Park’s film lacks the same pizzazz and snappy magnetism that worked so well for Damien Chazelle. Thankfully Park has enough to offer, including a subtle commentary on race and assimilation, that it doesn’t feel like a completely empty endeavor.
The film concerns Dr. Jonah Yoon (Eric Nam), an ambitious resident who has his eyes set on a heart transplant fellowship at his hospital. But he has to work under the tutelage of Dr. Harmon (Bill Camp), a renowned surgeon who has a contentious relationship with his staff, and it’s on full display during Jonah’s first surgery with him. Throughout Transplant, the two go back and forth, as Harmon gaslights and needles Yoon beyond his comfort zone, always escaping responsibility or blame. Throughout all of this, Yoon has to care for his mother (Michelle Okkyung Lee), who’s suffering from cancer and has nobody else to take her to and from chemo appointments. Camp has made a career out of supporting character turns, but he takes full advantage of the spotlight here, and Nam carries the film well enough when it focuses on him. At only 94 minutes, the film hums along nicely and knows when to hit the dramatic beats effectively. But the ending comes a little abruptly, even if it is ultimately cathartic. Much like Chazelle with his debut feature, Park could have an exciting career to come after Transplant.
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