[yasr_overall_rating]
Illusion Studios brings us a bilingual animated story of love and friendship directed by Edwardo Gondell and produced by Jose Luis Nosa. This was the first film for Illusion studios. An animated story about Valentina and her friends, who love shopping, sleepovers and dreaming about their first true love. When they decide to throw a spring bonfire party, they never expected it would turn into such an adventure!
It originally opened in 2010 throughout Mexico, Argentina and Uruguay. Unfortunately, it was a failure at the international and foreign box office. After viewing it, I can see why. It is much more of an after school special, made for TV movie than a full length box office feature film. I watched it with my 8 and 13 year old daughters. The 8 year old loved the story and the music, while the 13 year old rolled her eyes a lot and left the room halfway through the movie to talk on the phone with her friends.
Valentina and her two friends spend a lot of the movie talking about kissing boys and finding true love. They practice their music and try to boost each other’s confidence. It’s difficult to pinpoint the age group of the teenage girls and boys here, whose parents are never shown, and who sneak out at night to investigate a mystery without incident. There’s some unexpected suspense and fright, such as when a boy kicks a dog in one scene, and another when a boy is tied to the top of a bonfire. I didn’t like that the very next scene after the boy is rescued from the fire is of the crowd happily singing along with Valentina as she and her friends take the stage. There’s no consequences for the boy who caused all the trouble.
The animation is very simplistic and flat. The story line was interesting, but tried to be too much. I’m never really sure if the story is one of innocent first crush, being a loyal friend, trusting your instincts, anti-bullying or believing in yourself. Although all of these concepts could be rolled together to tell a great story, none are ever really developed enough to tell a complete story. I felt like I was getting a Reader’s Digest telling. I’m not sure if it was always bilingual. The dialogue is in English, but all the songs are in Spanish, and there are no subtitles. If you don’t speak Spanish, you miss out on 1/3 of the show. It wouldn’t be my first choice of a movie to watch on a lazy afternoon, but I might plug it in for my 8 year old to watch while I took care of some work around the house or at my desk.
“Valentina” is available now on VOD
