Bless Me, Ultima Review
Sinopsis
Based on acclaimed author Rudolfo Anaya's novel, BLESS ME, ULTIMA is a turbulent coming-of-age story about a young boy growing up in New Mexico during World War II, grappling with questions about his destiny, and the powers of a mystical woman.After years in the TV trenches, director Carl Franklin returns to the big screen with something both familiar and different. Like his first hit, One False Move, the story plays out in a small town, and like Devil in a Blue Dress, Bless Me, Ultima takes place in the past. If those films focused on adults in desperate situations, his leisurely paced adaptation of Rudolfo Anaya's 1972 novel centers on Antonio (sweet-faced Luke Ganalon), a first-grader who lives in New Mexico. With World War II winding down, his brothers are off serving the country when his parents (Benito Martinez and Dolores Heredia) welcome Ultima (Miriam Colon), a village elder, to live with them. His sisters have heard that she's a witch, but she's actually a curandera, or healer, who teaches him about herbs and their properties, but their idyllic summer comes to an end when his uncle falls ill after an encounter with a less benevolent force. While nursing the man back to health, Ultima makes an enemy out of a family who practices the dark arts. From this point forward, the narrative takes a turn for the melodramatic from which it never fully recovers as Antonio finds himself torn between good magic, bad magic, and a particularly rigid form of Catholicism. Much like the young seeker in Life of Pi, he doesn't choose one belief system over another, but he does learn respect for the natural world, so it's unfortunate that Franklin's direction feels more proficient than impassioned. Kathleen C. Fennessy