So Much Tenderness reunites me with Colombian-Canadian filmmaker Lina Rodriguez eight years after reviewing her feature-length debut Señoritas. While I can see a bit of growth between then and now, Rodriguez is still stuck in her naturalistic, fly-on-the-wall approach to personal character studies.
Environmental lawyer Aurora (Noëlle Schönwald) has sought out refuge in Canada after her husband is mysteriously killed. She flees across the border from Colombia and then, after some additional information is explained about Aurora’s backstory, the film fast-forwards to the refugee’s contemporary lifestyle in Toronto. Despite finding new roots and separating herself from the past, some new reminders and concerning sightings have Aurora second-guessing her identity.
By: Addison Wylie As soon as I found out Señoritas was the feature debut for filmmaker Lina Rodriguez, everything started making sense. Señoritas reminded me a lot of Krivina and Tower, two indies I caught at TIFF two years ago. Both films featured up-and-coming filmmakers taking on character studies and applying a drawn out pace. What separates those two independent films from Señoritas is that they were building towards something. Krivina applied a twist that…