Director A. J. Gomez is a regular guest of our festival. We know him from the well framed and lighted experimental short film entitled ‘}Oo(‘, one of the few experimental works in our festival that really stands out from the crowd.
This time, the director chooses a very different theme of a thriller-comedy: ‘GLORIA’. Arabella bursts into the house, accompanied by a young man – a friend, Elbert – covered in blood and bruises. The conflict is how to hide the truth from her boyfriend, Marshall, when Elbert pleads for coming clean about the facts.
‘GLORIA’ starts like a thriller, arousing the viewer’s curiosity and tensing the mood and then it suddenly twists towards smart comedy. An ironic, cynical comedy that intrigues as much as it amuses.
Bitterness is part of the recipe too for A. J. Gomez as he doesn’t spare his characters and endows them with tough flaws and then lets them be consumed by the following: naivety that blinds them away from the true side of things (which is the kind of bitterness we were mentioning previously) – Elbert; the selfishness and shallowness that makes one mean when they need to give them up for the better of others or the truth – Arabella; the ignorance that leads one to plain stupidity – the two other frivolous female characters whose name you’ll surely forget but their image and words one will find hard to lose; the parvenue character that is unable to discern the true value of things, wasting himself and his life with trifling things – Marshall.
There is a Shakespearean shade ‘GLORIA’ casts around; it must be the sharp critic that hides behind the apparent shallow comedic surface.
A truly entertaining watch that will pleasantly fill your time gap.
TMFF RATING:
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