The Story:
Grace (Eva Mendes) is a single mother who is raising her daughter, Ansiedad (Cierra Ramirez)... well, barely raising her daughter. When her daughter decides to write her own coming of age story with her own life, will Grace even notice? Ansiedad figures that the sooner she become an adult, the sooner she can get away from her mom.
I've debated on this review. It has its moments, but the movie was very yo-yo like... not sure if it wanted to be a comedy...a drama...
The tone was uneven, but the overall story, especially of Ansiedad (who names their kid Anxiety...I mean really...) is compelling.
Watching her want to get away from her mother, and going to great lengths to create her own coming of age storyline to ensure that she meets all the checkpoints on the road to adulthood is quite fascinating. It's both cute and heartbreaking to see the pains she goes through to make such dramatic changes in her life, and the only one that is noticing is her teacher (Patricia Arquette). Cierra Ramirez easily owns this movie, and when she's onscreen, the pace picks up tremendously and is involving and a complex story unfolds.
Grace's story is more convoluted than it should be, and she really isn't that great of a mom, even when she tries to be. Having an affair with a Doctor (Matthew Modine) who has every intention of leaving his wife, until she comes home...well you can figure out what's going to happen long before Grace will. Men are Grace's Achilles' heel, and it drives her daughter crazy. Naturally Grace cannot figure out why her daughter is acting so irrationally, but perhaps if she took a moment to just look in the mirror, she'd understand.
Come for the daughter's story, and see how not to raise a child.
Available for streaming now on Netflix as of this writing.
Final Grade: B- Like I said, I debated. It was good, and had flashes of brilliance...and then would stray...
Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Wouldn't buy it. Could watch it again on a slow night.
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