
“Nowhere”, a Netflix international thriller, had some trouble establishing its tone. Nevertheless, Castillo’s character kept the film afloat. Instead of depicting it as the refugee crisis it is in today’s world, the film starts out with a prologue set in a dystopian future where women and children are caged and murdered. This leads to a one woman surviving single character story. The movie shines in moments, like when it shows the lengths a woman is willing to go to in order to protect herself and her baby. This film has some unfortunate directing choices, however Castillo’s acting allows us to overlook them.
Castillo takes on the role of Mia, a woman heavily pregnant and the love interest of Nico (Tamar Nova’s). At this point, we are made aware of the couple’s escape from a country at violent war. They seek refuge from dogs and all the helicopter lights in the yard that is set for cargo, and in doing so, it is inevitable for them to get into one of the containers made for carrying ships. The couple has a hope of obtaining freedom from the state and enclaves. But naturally, their adventure takes a turn in the opposite direction than expected. This results in them being placed in two separate containers. Mia gets left behind with a bunch of strangers, and Nico gets put on a path that spells doom for him. To add insult to injury, their boat gets captured by soldiers. Shocker, everyone other than Mia gets murdered. The worst part about this is, we now have Mia in the ocean, alone, with very few items, let alone a way back home. Just as you think it couldn’t get worse, she goes into labor.
“Nowhere” achieves its highest impact when it is at its most deliberate Mia trying to open the roof, trying to figure out fishing, etc. These relatable sets are the most basic of survival tale tenet factors: They prompt everyone to ask themselves how would they behave under the same sets of conditions. Could we just cry and die waiting for someone to find us? Would we somehow learn how to survive within an undefined space, at a time, in the middle of nowhere? The added dynamic of being a mother changes everything. This is not a conventional survivor’s story. Mia is not only trying to fend for herself. She is fighting for the baby she has. It is all the more painful bearing in mind that she lost a child before all this drama started.
Director Albert Pinto gains the utmost from Castillo although at first the actress strikes as a bit too prim (it is honestly just the horrible lines of the boardroom conversation at the beginning) but she finally comes into her own after the birth and transforms into an unyielding force of survival. The elevation for a movie like this is given the nice boost from the maternal hook. We’ve all heard those tales about mothers lifting automobiles to rescue their offspring. Castillo sells the idea that it is more important to never give up not for oneself but one’s child.
Nowhere has some awkward filmmaking as well, particularly with the internal space of the container, which I wish was better portrayed. There exists a more claustrophobic and sharper version where the interior doesn’t feel quite so much like a set. And some of the hyper editing here is much too much when a stronger take would allow much longer shots and focus on the setting for more time, which would establish the time that Mia is stuck out there and the feeling of desperation. That is does not work towards helping is that Nowhere approaches boring over the course of the nearly two hours. I am also unsure what space this film occupies what it is trying to say. Most likely it is better to refrain from an examination of all these vague remarks on the world refugees, and just take Nowhere as a reminder of the strength of a mother’s dry and will to live. And to save.
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