Mia Sarah (2006) User Reviews

A sensitive and agreeable film about enjoyable relationships with attractive characters

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 28 July 2018]

At an apartment lives Samuel Davila :Manuel Lozano, his older sister , Marina :Veronica Sanchez , and their grandfather , Fernando Fernan Gomez . Samuel has agarophobia and his sister hires psychologists to cure him. The lastest results to be Gabriel , Daniel Guzman , a likeable psychologist who had long time ago a girlfriend , leaving him for a whale psychologist , nowadays , she calls him every night to ask for his advice to be pregnant and about her marriage .

This is a pretty good film though mostly claustrophobic , being mainly set at an old stately home and a few scenarios .The picture displays an optimist and sensitive message with sympathetic roles and charming situations . As Gabriel well played by Daniel Guzman plays a always glad psychologist accostumed to live his existence with the assumption that happiness is for the others and no for himself , as he is really ingenuous because knows nothing better in his life . Excellent Manuel Lozano as the recluded teen who suffers severe agarophobia and designs plots to repele a long line of psychologists who come to cure him.Veronica Sanchez performs marvelously the good sister who sacrifices herself for her small family . Special mention for the always great Fernando Fernan Gomez as the understanding and honest grandfather who was a famous writer.

The movie contains a colorful cinematography , usually in half-light from the apartment , by David Carretero, being shot in A Coruña , Galicia. Carrereto is a profesional cameraman with national and international successes including titles as Utopia , Infierno , The nun, Los Dalton contra Lucky Luke .Moving and stirring musical score by Cesar Benito who has composed nice soundtracks as Savaged , Cielito Lindo , Tv series as Tiempo entre costuras ,Los protegidos , Sonata del silencio , La chica de ayer.The film being well produced by Julio Fernandez , Carlos Fernandez from Filmax Productions.The motion picture was compellingly directed by Gustavo Ron.He is a fine craftsman who has directed a few films and TV series as May Bakery in Brooklyn , Vivir para siempre or Way to live forever and Velvet colection series . Rating : 6.5/10 , worthwhile seeing .

The ghost writer

[jotix100 · 7/10 · 26 December 2007]

For a change, a film from Spain where the politics are left aside in a comedy that will prove to be a crowd pleaser, although we have no idea what reception it might have had in its native country, and judging by only two comments submitted to this site, it might not have received mass distribution.

First time director Gustavo Ron, working on the screen play that he, and Edmon Roch created, shows an affinity for this type of light fare. The film which was shot in Galicia, a gorgeous part in Northern Spain, is easy on the eye.

Best of all in the movie is Manuel Lozano, a young actor who shows a talent, and presence. He is Samuel, a young man traumatized by the loss of his parents in an accident, who hasn't left the family apartment in about three years. He lives side by side with the memory of his grandfather, a writer.

Samuel's sister, Marina, nicely played by Veronica Sanchez, wants to get the young man out of his shell and decides to hire a young man, Gabriel, a funny Daniel Guzman, to tutor her brother. Hidden in the background, and obviously only seen by Samuel is Paul, the grandfather, who is seen giving Samuel advice in helping him write a book. Fernando Fernan Gomez, who passed away recently, is seen as the wise old man. Phyllida Law plays a small, but key role in the movie.

"Mia Sarah" is a small joyous comedy from a director to watch out for, Gustavo Ron.

Truly Moving Picture

[tollini · 10/10 · 16 September 2007]

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2007. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit organization that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture "…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life."

This is a charming story of romance, comedy, tragedy, mystery and fantasy set in Spain. A young girl in her twenties, Marina, and her teenage brother, Samuel, have lost their parents in an accident three years ago. Samuel has taken it hard. He hasn't left their apartment in these last three years and has created a bizarre world for himself and his once-famous literary grandfather. And his eccentricity and cleverness scares off his tutors who try to educate him. The very attractive Marina has no life as she is consumed with taking care of Samuel and working across the street as a waitress.

Marina accidentally meets up with a psychologist, Gabriel, and asks him to be her brother's tutor. Almost immediately, Gabriel has a powerful positive effect on Samuel. And Gabriel becomes smitten with Marina. The student Samuel reverses roles and begins to teach the shy Gabriel how to attract women.

Gabriel and Marina are very attractive people to the audience. We root for them and we want them to emotionally find each other. But it's not certain or easy. Marina has financial and work problems and she focuses her life on Samuel. Gabriel is just wonderfully innocent and inept.

This film is beautifully made. The cinematography, settings, direction, music and acting are incredibly appealing. And the characters ring of honesty and decency and sincerity. This feels like a Frank Capra-directed classic – but set in today's world.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

A Romantic Comedy with Genius

[jmcaparros · 10/10 · 31 December 2006]

Gustavo Ron, the young author of MIA SARAH, possesses an own style that he drinks in the fountains of the classic big ones Yes, of original one might qualify MIA SARAH, the unusual first opera of this new director, that starts out in the feature film with a bold proposal, counterflow in the current Spanish cinema. It is more, this first feature film distills poetry, surrealism and magic, absent values in the screens of the cinematic generation of the new century.

Born in Madrid (1972), but formed in Barcelona, Gustavo Ron graduated in Production, Script and Direction in the famous London International Film School a decade ago. There he learned the profession –for he took celluloid in the blood- and started to collaborate in tasks of production and script in Spanish, French, German and American movies. At the same time, he has directed three shorts and a documentary film. Afterwards, among other works –for he also cultivates the musical composition and the poetry-, he obtained the confidence of two Galician producers: Andrés Barbé and Julio Fernández to make MIA SARAH.

This film has surprised me very positively. In the first place, for his optimistic tone -the public goes out of the happy room-, where a healthy but not naive sense of the humor presides over all the story. Next, for his neat staging. Gustavo Ron really knows cinema; he composes the scenes with neat supreme one and great sensitivity artistic, besides achieving sequences of enormous emoticons without falling in the sentimentalism nor in the concession to the audience. Sober but stimulating, amusing and lyrical at the same time, this young filmmaker has written with Edmon Roch a screen play where it is not in excess nor a frame, with some dialogs well measured -not at all usual thing in the Spanish cinema-, misses with a soundtrack of exception and a design of production, that it becomes definite in a planning in CinemaScope where the coloring likewise has a dramatic and even symbolic sense.

Filmed in Coruña, Betanzos and London, MIA SARAH has reminiscences of the great classics, as Ernst Lubitch, Frank Capra, Leo McCarey, Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen ("Singing' in the Rain"), or of young directors, as Alfonso Cuarón ("A Little Princess"), although with the personality characteristic of his author. A Spanish filmmaker that is also brilliant in the direction of his starring, all in "state of grace"; then from the Daniel Guzmán and the Verónica Sánchez (similar to "Amélie"), up to the veteran Fernando Fernán-Gómez, nothing screeches in the shining cast.

It is for this reason that the narrative gyration and the final surprise act as MIA SARAH one of the most innovative and most daring movies of that Young Spanish Cinema of which so much we are poor for a renewal of our commercial screens. Now mistake that audience -popular and intellectual public- answers favorably to the brilliant proposal of Gustavo Ron. At the moment, note his name.