PopHorror Let's Get Scared
How many times can one movie break your heart? When I started watching the newly released film, Silencio, I didn’t ask myself that, but perhaps I should have. I sat down to watch this movie thinking it would have some cool, sci-fi-esque story, and ended up getting all caught up feeling all the feels, walking away not quite knowing what I had just seen. That’s not to say it isn’t without its problems, but there aren’t many. Needless to say, Silencio isn’t exactly what I was expecting.
Silencio was written and directed by Lorena Villarreal. It stars Melina Matthews as Ana, John Noble as James, Rupert Graves as Peter, Michael Chauvet as Daniel, Novak Ricardo Canamar as Felix and Hoze Melendez as the kidnapper. The story time jumps quite a bit, but it all centers around a single stone that was found the Mexican Bermuda Triangle called the Zone of Silence, and has powers that can’t even be dreamed of. With this stone, you can change anything in your life that you desire to change (I’m being purposely vague). Because of the importance of this stone, someone is after it and they are willing to do anything to get to it, even if it means murder.
Silencio a hard film to review because so much of it was a surprise in the storyline. While the first half of the movie is hard to connect with, the second half kicks it into gear and tore my feelings apart on more than one occasion. The first half of the movie centers primarily on James and interactions with the stone. The second half is about Ana, who is trying to locate the stone to save her son. It’s Ana that truly makes this film what it is. While John Noble is an amazing actor, in this film, they make him so melodramatic at times that it is hard to take the mood seriously. When Ana takes over, the story, her intensity and acting skills are out of this world and take you on a roller coaster of emotions. And it was then that I asked myself, “How many times can one person’s heart break in a film?”
One of the coolest aspects of this movie was the language. The movie starts in English, switches to Spanish and then goes back and forth throughout the film. For families that speak more than one language, this was a realistic portrayal of what being bilingual is like.
All in all, I really do recommend this film. The ending was a bit confusing and fell under the shadow of the last act, but Silencio is a great film that deserves a watch. Just get those tissues ready. You have been warned. The film opens in U.S. cinemas on October 26!
