Having admitted that his fiction directing debut, the entirely Spanish-language and Mexico-set Abel, was only eligible to compete in Deauville's Festival of American Film because one of the co-producers is certified Yank John Malkovich, personable Mexican actor-turned-director Diego Luna blurted out, "Wow. Look at all these people. I think this is the largest venue my film has ever been shown in – including in Mexico." (The film had previously played Sundance and Cannes among other prominent 2010 film events before landing in Normandy in September ahead of its French theatrical release.) Luna went on to joke that if the 1,200 people present each told a few friends to go see his movie, he wouldn't object.
Abel is an offbeat, credulity-stretching tale in which the title character – an emotionally troubled but appealing 9-year-old boy – decides to (literally) behave like the man of the house toward his mother and siblings. Luna set out to make the film after he himself became a father.
As the story surges forward in mini-leaps, the film's execution slyly reflects the parental dilemma of rarely having enough time to stay on top of everything. An anything-can-happen vibe characterises the proceedings.
The film's tone is pleasingly bizarre. Abel, who stopped speaking when his father left the family, has been interned for two years at a mental hospital near his home in the Western central Mexico region of Aguascalientes. Something is definitely wrong with Abel but his doctors can't figure out what. Treatment hasn't convinced him to talk or calmed his violent outbursts.
Shortly before Abel's mandatory departure for a psychiatric children's hospital in far away Mexico City, his mother, Cecilia, convinces her son's doctor to let Abel return home for a week. Cecilia argues that if she can handle Abel during the visit he needn't be shipped off to Mexico City.
So Abel comes home to live with his mother, 16-year-old sister Selene and 5-year-old brother, Paul. The atmosphere is tense.
All of a sudden, Abel starts talking. And his words and actions indicate he thinks that as the oldest male on the premises, he's his own mother's mate and his sister and brother's father. Got that? The incongruity of a pre-pubescent boy laying down the rules throws everyone for a loop. In hopes that going along with Abel's take-charge manner will somehow contribute to his recovery, mom lets Abel have his way. Nobody dares contradict the mini-martinet.
But when Abel's real father, Anselmo, returns, the boy's confusion escalates. Cecilia reassures her son that the man who's really his father is merely her cousin. Anselmo doesn't care for that charade one bit.
Which of Abel's parents has the correct approach to curing their son's delusions?
"The mother is hugely important in Mexican culture, and that's partly because for decades fathers have been leaving their families to go to the U.S. and find jobs," says Luna. "There are towns in Mexico where you don't see any men between the ages of 20 and 50 because they all left to look for work."
Luna, whose father is a set designer, started working professionally on stage at age six. His mother died in a car crash when he was only two and he openly embraces the autobiographical aspects of the script he wrote with Augusto Mendoza. Luna says he has no memories of his mother and admits he was treated as a grown up from a very young age.
We tend to root for children in movies – especially if they're entertainingly precocious or, say, evil incarnate. Recent examples of impressive child performances abound. Morgana Davies as Charlotte Gainsbourg's 8-year-old daughter in The Tree is outstanding, as is Mélusine Mayance as 10-year-old Sarah in Sarah's Key or Thomas Robinson in the sperm-donor comedy The Switch.
Casting Abel was crucial and, after a year of workshops for promising youngsters in Aguascalientes, Luna found Christopher Ruiz-Esparza. The boy had no acting experience prior to the workshop and had never travelled beyond his small town.
Ruiz-Esparza, whose own real life brother plays his screen sibling, convinces as a boy who's in love with his mother and so confused about his role in the family that he decides he must be the patriarch.
Luna, of course, came to international prominence as the co-star of Y tu mama tambien and may have given his finest performance to date in Gus Van Sant's Milk. Both films, coincidentally, explore what it means to be male and fluid variations thereof.
After a lifetime spent on film sets – and an initial stint behind the camera on 2007 documentary J.C. Chavez about legendary boxer Julio Cesar Chavez – Luna appears to be a rising director as well as a versatile actor.
Abel boasts energetic visuals that underscore the film's jostling layers of emotional upheaval. Although the situation is serious, the film is comic. A late-arriving crisis suggests that Abel's return home may not have been such a great idea for young Abel – but it is the foundation for a narrative many viewers will find entertaining.
