Gloria
The great accomplishment of “Gloria,” the Chilean writer-director Sebastián Lelio’s astute, unpretentious and thrillingly humane new film, is that it acknowledges both sides of its heroine’s temperament without judgment or sentimentality. In a North American movie — a fizzy Hollywood comedy of empowerment or a glum indie kitchen-sink melodrama — a woman like Gloria would most likely invite either pity or condescending encouragement. But Gloria, played with dignity and gusto by Paulina García, is too complicated for such treatment.
Viewed from one angle, “Gloria” is a cautionary love story, a tale of weary resilience in the face of disappointment and loss. But Mr. Lelio enriches it with a combination of narrative expansiveness and filmmaking discipline. No aspect of Gloria’s experience is off limits for him, and some of the film’s most memorable moments are those a more plot-focused director might have omitted, like the party scene in which she listens to unidentified friends performing Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “Waters of March,” one of the loveliest songs ever written.
One of the delights of “Gloria” is that its richly detailed realism is fuel for thought: about Chile, about men and women, about how the cycles of family life have and have not changed as a result of sexual liberation and consumer capitalism. But Mr. Lelio, who is closer in age to Gloria’s children than to their mother, is wise enough to avoid overthinking or didacticism. He is interested, above all, in showing Gloria exactly as she is, which is beautiful.
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