Cine Las Americas Review: Clara Cullen’s MANUELA captures Sean Baker-style indie magic
It’s great that Sean Baker has finally broken through as an awards-perennial filmmaker, as his work now seems to be inspiring new filmmakers to make similarly intimately shot, local-color portraits of marginalized characters. Made on a $75,000 budget with an extraordinarily cooperative child who can’t be older than three at the most, writer-director Clara Cullen’s Manuela feels fully in the spirit of the likes of Prince of Broadway or Tangerine, albeit with fewer characters and locations due to budgetary limits. At 90 minutes, it also feels too short, ending at a story point that other filmmakers might use as the middle. On the plus side, that certainly beats overstaying its welcome, and it absolutely leaves us wanting more from Cullen.
Manuela (Barbara Lombardo) is a Spanish-speaking immigrant in L.A., though it’s unclear from where, as her story varies, Joker-like, depending who she’s talking to. Finding no luck in obtaining a retail job, she eventually gets one as au pair to wealthy single mom Ellen (Sophie Buhai), who proudly had daughter Alma (Alma Farago) as an in vitro fertilization, and proclaims that she doesn’t need a man to help, even as she jet-sets all over the world leaving her toddler behind. Ultimately, Manuela builds up enough trust with the mom that she becomes a full-time live-in during longer excursions, and with the kid to the point that she becomes like an alternate mother.
But there’s a shadow hanging over the story. The movie opens with a shot of Manuela and Alma crossing the border into Mexico, which seems like a drastic step that must be justified by an equally drastic plot turn. So even as we observe the otherwise pleasant bonding, that’s always in the back of the mind. What’s going to happen that sends her fleeing? And will Alma be a willing participant, or a kidnapped victim? Ellen periodically buzzes in via remote camera to gently and righteously chide Manuela’s decisions; for example, buying Alma a shirt with a cartoon princess on it. Manuela, meanwhile, has some close calls, like an anxious run-in with a local perv, and a moment of anxiety losing track of her charge. There’s an omnipresent sense that any of these moments could escalate, with Manuela in a position of insufficient privilege to defend herself.
Like the Sean Baker films this resembles, Manuela has a strong sense of place, capturing Los Angeles more the way the actual residents know it than the movies usually do. Leafblower and lawnmower noises abound, and the downtown bargain stores look the way no set decorator would likely duplicate. Ellen’s upscale house feels white and empty – like her! – because it’s the way she would keep that house, rather than, as in so many cheap indies, because of the budgetary necessity of a minimally dressed set.
Alma is the director’s real daughter, and Lombardo a good friend, which allows for a level of natural reality no toddler could likely give in an artificial setting. There is a lot of casual nudity, as one might expect from a child that young, though perhaps not from her au pair too, who eventually becomes such a substitute mom that she bathes with the kid and such. There’s nothing sinister or predatory about it, but viewers steeped in different standards of modesty may not feel entirely comfortable. In this instance it helps to know that all involved are basically family off-camera too.
Manuela has screened at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and recently won Best Narrative Feature at Austin’s Cine Las Americas.
