“Gringa” – Groaner [MOVIE REVIEW]
As Fats Domino sang so eloquently, “Ain’t that a shame.” “Gringa,” the assured directing debuts of Marny Eng and E.J. Forester is thoroughly undermined by an inadequate script. Eng and Forester more than do their jobs by keeping things moving and trying to bring out the development of all their characters. To say that Patrick Hasburgh’s script let them down is an understatement. Steve Zahn as Jackson. Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures. Margie, the awkward teenage daughter of Marge, a beautiful and clever real estate agent, is trying desperately to fit in. An adequate soccer player, she’s in above her head with the local club team and constantly denigrated by her teammates and her coach. When her mother is suddenly killed (it happens too early in the film to be a spoiler), and she is faced with living with her unloving grandparents, she makes a run for the border, literally and figuratively. Rumor has it, well more than rumor, that her dad, Jackson, the pro soccer player who abandoned them when she was two, lives in Mexico. Determined to find him, she boards a bus to Lo de Marcos, his town on the beach, and leaves everything behind. Surprising him might have been a mistake…
Read this story on easyreadernews.com