Bea (Melanie Delloye) is a young Colombian wannabe actress who lives in Buenos Aires with another young girl, and dreams about success and fame. To be more precise, she’s played a couple of bit parts — not a very rewarding experience. Like so many other actors, she wants her big break and to become a much sought-after actress.
But, as is usually the case, she must earn her living before her dreams materialize. To this aim, Bea kindly takes care of an old lady and during the rest of the time she goes to theatre rehearsals and auditions of all kinds — commercials, stage plays, movies. When she meets a somewhat well-known producer, Lalo (César Bordón), she believes her chance to make it big has come. But as we all know, looks can be deceiving. Too bad Bea doesn’t find out until faced with harsh reality.
So talking about actresses, the first thing that can be said about filmmaker Leonardo D’Antoni’s Aventurera is that Delloye does a moderately good job conveying some of the most significant traits of Bea. I wouldn’t go as far as saying she pulls off an intense character study, but her character is fleshed out and makes you care for her.
Some conversations between Bea and her fellow actors ring true, especially those at the beginning, which sound as lines drawn from a documentary on Thespians and directors. The camera captures these conversations in a spontaneous manner. So far, so good.
But this is what the story amounts to. And this is when Aventurera runs into big problems as it pictures trite, two-dimensional characters inhabit usual territory: the theatre, television and movie sets. Almost everything you see here — auditions, sexual favours, bad producers, temperamental actors — is the kind of stuff you’ve often seen before. There are no new examinations of the potentially rich material the film deals with, and there’s no persuasive if conventional drama. Soon, what Aventurera achieves when the lead character is introduced is then lost into commonplace situations.
While the camerawork is appropriate, the lighting design is far from expressive — it doesn’t narrate the story in aesthetic terms, it’s just functional to the story in an elementary way, and it’s also flat, very flat. So it’s hard to keep your interest in a story with a good, realistic beginning that then resorts to uninspired, formulaic work as regards content and the way it unfolds.
Where and when
Centro Cultural de la Cooperación (Av. Corrientes 1543). Thursdays at 9pm.
Production notes
Aventurera (Argentina, 2014). Directed by Leonardo D’Antoni. Written by: Leonardo D’Antoni and Melanie Delloye. With: Melanie Delloye, César Bordón, Sebastián Arzeno, Natalia Morales. Cinematography: Leonardo D’Antoni. Editing: Leonardo D’Antoni. Running time: 85 minutes.
