It’s become commonplace to say that Erica Rivas is a riveting actress, more so after her performance as a disappointed and vengeful bride in the Oscar-nominated Wild Tales. Nonetheless, commonplace is often true, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that she excels in Jazmín Stuart’s second opus Pistas para volver a casa. Juan Minujín is also a gifted thespian and delivers an equally compelling performance as her older brother. The same goes for Hugo Arana and Beatriz Spelzini as Rivas’ and Minujín’s father and mother. Granted, their roles are far from complex, but that doesn’t make their acting any less convincing. Pistas para volver a casa is the kind of film where actors truly make a difference for the better.
Here’s the storyline in a few lines: Pascual (Juan Minujín) and Dina (Erica Rivas) are two siblings reaching their forties who were abandoned by their mother, Celina (Beatriz Spelzini) when they were children. Their father, Antonio (Hugo Arana), has never recovered from it and is all alone. On a given day and out of the blue, he embarks on a journey to find her, but has an accident on the road. Dina and Erica rush to help him and Pistas para volver a casa becomes a modest road movie.
And while the trip shouldn’t be that interesting in itself since it’s only a vehicle for the characters’ inner discovery, the stops have to acquire some weight. Which they never do. As for the screenplay as well as its tone, the situation is rather different. Most of the time, Stuart’s feature is a dramatic comedy that manages to switch from laughs to tears, from lightweight fare to more insightful stuff. So the fact that the transitions are well established is a plus. Then there are zones when it goes for more hectic and strange occurrences and so it becomes a kind of adventure film. And there’s also room for going down memory lane as the characters reflect upon their past in a melancholic manner.
While the comic sequences, which sometimes verge on the absurd, do work very well and are sometimes very funny, the dramatic parts are hard to swallow as they cover overworked territory to the point you can predict the characters’ lines and actions with little effort. Although you can buy the humour easily, the rest rings false more often that not. And the more depth the film tries to reach, the shallower it actually becomes. Not a nice paradox. Though it should be noted that some scenes, as the one where Spelzini recalls a painful past event, is touching because she makes it believable. As for the adventures, let’s say they lack enough drive, and the nostalgia feels formulaic. And that’s that
