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100This small film's accomplishments are many, but not the least is its ability to take a human story and frame it as a parable, without losing a bit of credibility or irresistible heart.
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100Sensual and romantic with a heavy dose of the supernatural and populated by indelible characters.
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80Undertow, for all its narrative tricks, has been given the rhythm and texture of real life, as well as emotional undercurrents that are haunting.
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80In a confident yet relaxed feature debut, Fuentes-León has created a wholly unified work of art.
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Nov 24, 201080Filmmaker Javier Fuentes-Leon's delicately and sensuously illuminates this collision of contemporary sexuality with centuries of dogma and tradition. At times, he interjects magical realist elements into the story, which makes it confusing rather than lifting it to a higher plane of understanding.
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80Undertow, is sublime. Set in a small, picturesque Peruvian fishing village, it's less a coming-out tale than a magic realism–infused coming-of-consciousness love story.
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Nov 22, 201080A languid, quietly moving love triangle.
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75Like most films about gay men, Undertow can't envision a normal life of couplehood. But Fuentes-Léon works in a blithe and breezy magic-realist manner that fends off attendant feelings of depression.
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Jan 28, 201175As if love triangles aren't complicated enough, the bittersweet Peruvian film Undertow offers a couple of twists on the archetype.
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70A small movie with a full heart, Undertow takes an old idea - the loving, lingering ghost - and gives it reverberant, resuscitated life.
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70Neither sexually explicit nor showily lyrical, Undertow nonetheless has a sensuous, romantic feel that balances same-sex love with an equally empathetic view toward the adoring, then bewildered, then enraged wife.
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60Without excessive emotion or drama, director Javier Fuentes-León's film - and Mercado's performance - gently captures the power of emotions whose silent rattle is even stronger than reality.
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60Undertow's three impassioned lead performances and Fuentes-León's honest engagement with thorny matters of identity, sexuality and community still make it an easy movie to get swept up by.