Review of The Life of Fish (2010) by Dickie L — 13 May 2011

Possibly the longest goodbye in film history, the opening scene shows Andres leaving a party. 85 minutes later as the film ends, he's still leaving the party. In between he goes from one room to another, talking to people.

It may not sound thrilling, but for almost all of its length, the exchanges he has are so charged with intensity you can't help but be drawn in. Slowly we learn the reasons for the accumulating emotion.

Suitably, a scene shot through an aquarium is the film's highlight. As Andres, Santiago Cabrera is in every scene. He does a great job of keeping his character intriguing. It doesn't hurt that he's very easy on the eye.

The script treads a delicate balance of eking out information at a deliberate pace. The balance works well up until the last, lengthy exchange, which should have been the climax we'd been waiting for, but sadly fails to deliver.

Still, an impressive effort on an obviously small budget.