Yolanda (Fenessa Pineda) is brainy and shy; Mari (Venecia Troncoso), the sullen new girl in school, has a take-no-shit swagger that hides a wounded soul. Soon, the two teenagers become close friends—and potentially more. Aurora Guerrero’s character study works best when its focuses more on the periphery, with caught-on-the-fly scenes of L.A.’s Huntington Park Chicano community that crackle with life. (It also features the year’s best Spanish-language soundtrack.) But Guerrero’s handling of the bond between these two teens feels too coy by half; the film thankfully resists being either a typical coming-out movie or an ethnocultural curio, but it doesn’t offer much insight into the twosome’s attraction, platonic or otherwise, to each other.
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