I didn’t know anything about this movie going in, so I had no idea what to expect; but I ended up being pleasantly surprised by the end. “La memoria del agua” was a touching story of a couple that suffers the terrible loss of their four-year-old son Pedro and what that means for them moving forward.
One of the best things about this film is that it never shows flashbacks for exposition—it does a great way of explaining everything in little bits through either reactions or dialogue. The couple, Javier and Amanda, understandably go through a hard time after their loss and have to deal with it in their own way. Javier tries to keep the couple together but Amanda wants her space because she sees her son when she looks at Javier.
Amanda eventually starts hooking up with her ex, first stating “he’s just lonely,” but it was more likely projection after being on her own after her split with Javier.
Javi, on the other hand, tries to carry on with work but can’t help but think of his old family at every turn. When he meets up with Amanda again at a mutual friend’s child’s birthday party, you can see the love in his eyes and joy to see her again. It’s when her ex, Marcos, shows up, that Javier understands she’s trying to move on and it almost breaks him.
The cinematography felt different than what I’ve been trained to expect. It seemed a little shaky, but also really long cuts which gives the impression that I was always in the room as opposed to watching a movie of this couple.
As one could imagine, it was a very emotional roller coaster. From someone who knows several people who have lost their children early on, I could really feel for the turmoil that the characters go through. From a moviegoer’s perspective, a lot of it felt cliché and predictable. It didn’t take away from the film much, because not too many revolve around child loss, but it’s going to be hard in showing me new things about dealing with relationship trouble on-screen.
I was happy with the ending however, because it felt realistic given the circumstances and it wasn’t so much like a “movie ending.” If you want to see to see a movie deal with real heavy problems and deal with them like people instead of rom-com movie characters, definitely give this a check.
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About Nathan
I’m definitely new to this whole writing thing, so forgive lack of eloquencies. I play a lot of video games and have more movie opinions than most people care to hear. In the process of leash training my cat so we can eventually go hiking together. You can follow me on Twitter & Instagram: @n842, learn about my new movie podcast Thoughts in the Can here, and my in-progress video game podcast Hard Mode here.