Fact-inspired ‘Mother-Love’ story from Argentina, ‘fesses up’ to trimming the truth ‘for dramatic purposes’ in a title-card just before the End Credits. How you feel about this subterfuge from writer/director Benjamín Ávila may make you second guess the entire film. On its own terms, it’s an involving and emotional journey thru the police procedures, courts and prisons of 2004 Argentina under a Perónist government. You know what’s coming: miscarriage of justice ripping apart a happy home (working single-mom/three kids) when a SWAT Team invades to arrest eldest son Federico Heinrich (excellent) without warrant or charges. Held in a prison archipelago at 18, it takes weeks to find out what’s going on. Sympathetic lawyer impotently suggesting patience while Mom (Natalia Oreiro) seems a bit naive about the lack of basic rights under this right-wing So. American legal system. Eventually, after many long waits in line, she establishes a routine for visits, bringing clothes, blankets, food, phone cards, etc. Two new friends help her thru the confusion: another prisoner’s mom who’s been thru this drill for most of her life, and a long-term prisoner who shares her lawyer and is able to get word out to her when her son can’t. But the film only jumps to a higher level not, as you might expect at an emotionally raw, self-support group for prisoner wives & mothers, but during Mom’s all-girl social get-together, friends who know more about her situation than they let on, but whose condescending ‘help’ gets under her skin. It also hints at the fictional twist the film uses to add suspense, texture and a chance for Mom to play crime sleuth. The revelation coming at a cost . . . to the film.
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