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‘Corina’ Review: A Refreshingly Endearing, Surprisingly Incisive Defense of Happy Endings That Plays Like Mexican ‘Amélie’
'Corina,' a debut film from Urzula Barba Hopfner, stars 'Ted Lasso' actor Cristo Fernández and plays like a Mexican 'Amelie.'
In the decades since its release to critical acclaim and record-setting grosses, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Amélie,” the whimsical dramedy about a quirky Parisian woman finding love through random acts kindness, has endured in pop culture and influenced a generation of filmmakers, both for better and certainly for worse. A 20-year-old agoraphobic living in Guadalajara — México’s second largest metropolis and Guillermo del Toro’s hometown — the title character, played by Naian González Norvind (“New Order”), wears boots, a maxi skirt and sports the French bob haircut emblematic of actress Audrey Tautou as Amélie Poulain. But in spite of the overly familiar setup of Barba Hopfner’s character portrait, the narrative evolves into its own idiosyncrasy, not only by virtue of its Mexican context or because Corina wishes to be seen as a writer, but because its observations about self-actualization, courage and the value of stepping outside of one’s comfort zone (quite literally in this case) thoughtfully expands on the themes that “Amélie” addresses.
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