"Duck Season" is the first film by Mexican writer-director Fernando Eimbcke to receive wide release in the States, and it's a sly and shifty comedy that slowly peels back its audience's preconceptions about the characters in that tacky little apartment. Playing like a cross of Jim Jarmusch's "Stranger Than Paradise" and the "Lazy Sunday" music video from "Saturday Night Live" that was an Internet hit earlier this year, the movie sneaks up on you to make its points.
The longer we stay in the apartment and the less that happens, the more we learn about the characters. Flama (Daniel Miranda) is miserable because he's caught in a custody battle between his divorcing parents. Moko (Diego Catano Elizondo) has a crush on his more reserved friend and is basically a hormonal outburst waiting to happen. Ulises (Enrique Arreola) is a dreamer who imagines escaping his miserable life and all care. And Rita (Danny Perea) is a girl-child, burgeoning on maturity, ignored by her family and incapable of the simplest tasks.
Eimbcke brings his characters together in unpredictable combinations of sympathy, longing, hope, mischief and despair. It doesn't blast off like that other Mexican art house coming-of-age hit, "Y Tu Mama Tambien," but it's warm, winning and clever.
You can find the review here
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