Many a chef will tell you that fish and cheese don’t go together, but “Blue Miracle” says otherwise. Based on the true, headline-making story of an amateur Mexican team who won the world’s richest fishing tournament in 2014, Julio Quintana’s likable family film misses nary a cornball trick in Hollywood’s underdog-drama playbook, and just about pulls it off.
Viewers can see precisely where Quintana and co-writer Chris Dowling have embellished the saga of Cabo orphanage proprietor Omar Venegas, who led a handful of his teenage wards to that unlikely victory: “Blue Miracle” is awash with eleventh-hour peril and contrivance, reducing characters to stock figures to make plain sailing of its crowd-pleasing narrative. Audiences are unlikely to mind as they discover the film on Netflix: It’s a processed fish stick rather than a blue marlin steak, but it fills you up just the same.
That “Blue Miracle...
Viewers can see precisely where Quintana and co-writer Chris Dowling have embellished the saga of Cabo orphanage proprietor Omar Venegas, who led a handful of his teenage wards to that unlikely victory: “Blue Miracle” is awash with eleventh-hour peril and contrivance, reducing characters to stock figures to make plain sailing of its crowd-pleasing narrative. Audiences are unlikely to mind as they discover the film on Netflix: It’s a processed fish stick rather than a blue marlin steak, but it fills you up just the same.
That “Blue Miracle...
- 5/27/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Directors of a certain auteurist stripe serving as producers for up-and-comers and protégés can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, they may over-exert their influence and end up railroading the intentions of their mentee. A younger, less experienced director, when faced with working under the tutelage of their idol, could let their own intentions and art be subsumed by the vision of their elder. If the two collaborators are on the same level visually and existentially, though, then the fusion of established name with emergent talent can be something sublime and beautiful.
The Vessel, blessedly, fits into this latter category. Directed and written by Julio Quintana and produced by Terrence Malick, it is the rare film in which the guiding hand of the artist-as-producer feels not overbearing or dominant, but rather paternal and knowing. It is obvious that this is entirely Quintana’s movie, his vision and his spirit,...
The Vessel, blessedly, fits into this latter category. Directed and written by Julio Quintana and produced by Terrence Malick, it is the rare film in which the guiding hand of the artist-as-producer feels not overbearing or dominant, but rather paternal and knowing. It is obvious that this is entirely Quintana’s movie, his vision and his spirit,...
- 9/15/2016
- by Brian Roan
- The Film Stage
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