When I read the description of Anita I thought it certain that I'd cry at the screening. I mean, a story of a woman with Down Syndrome left to wander Buenos Aires alone just didn't sound like a happy story. However Anita really isn't a tear-jerker and instead is really quite pick your cliché – touching, heart-warming, etc.
Because of her condition, Anita, an adult, still lives at home with her mother Dora. The Feldmans – the family is Jewish - have a set routine where Dora wakes Anita up, feeds her, and has little game to make sure that baths make for a thorough cleaning. Anita's brother Ariel puts in an appearance with his wife one Sunday. While Felix had promised to take Anita to the zoo, he reneges because the World Cup is on television, greatly upsetting his sister. On his way out, Ariel proudly shows off his new car to his mother.
Dora's apartment sits above her shop which stocks children's toys, books, and the like. The day after Ariel's visit Dora leaves Anita at the shop while she heads down to the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA in Spanish) building to pick up a disability check. She says it won't take long and that she'll be back when the big hand on the clock is at the top. As Anita delicately places a box on a shelf, an explosion rips through the street and into the store. The bombing here is a true event that happened on 18 July 1994 when the AMIA building when a car bomb detonated in front of it killing 85 people and injuring hundreds.
Anita makes her way out of the rubble and into the street where she is hustled into a bus which is evacuating people from the area. Her injuries aren't serious so no one takes much notice when she wanders out of the hospital.
Although an adult, Anita's disability means that she doesn't know her surname nor where she lives. While she knows about the utility of phones, she knows no one's number. But she waits by a pay phone anyway and meets up with Felix, a down and nearly out photographer who is more interested in alcohol than photography. Felix feels badly for her and takes her home. Although he is good-natured, Felix isn't sure how to help Anita. He fears that involving the police would only lead to her being locked away in an asylum.
However much he wants to help, Felix, who admits that he is lost too, just can't follow through and he abandons Anita on a bus. Her adventures continue with an Asian family who own a grocery store (Anita loves hot cocoa and vanilla wafers) and a nurse who takes her in as well. All the while Ariel contends with his own struggles. He buries his mother and loses hope that his sister will ever be found. But as I said above, this movie is heart-warming, etc. and so the brother and sister eventually find one another.
Anita could have easily been a darker story but director/writer Marcos Carnevale chose instead to do two things which keeps the story on the sunny side. First is that the people that Anita encounters are helpful. They want to help and even though they get frustrated at being in a situation that is new – caring for a person with Down Syndrome – they all eventually come around to realize that inviting Anita into their home is the right thing to do. (I'm not sure what it says about the police in Buenos Aires that the characters here are afraid to enlist their help.) Anita doesn't run into any predators.
The second thing Carnevale did was to make his lead character simple but very loveable. Anita is a very happy-go-lucky person. That she cannot even articulate what had happened to her and tells everyone she meets that her mother will be back when the big hand is on top attracts sympathy from the viewer. But to Carnevale's credit, he never goes overboard. Because Anita is never seriously imperiled, the audience can enjoy her unencumbered outlook on life and the pleasure she takes in simple things like a good vanilla wafer.
Simply put, Anita is a feel-good movie. It doesn't wrestle with moral ambiguities nor does it preach anything about the mentally disabled. The story sticks with very basic things like remaining hopeful, being kind to strangers, and seizing the day because life is short. Normally such films aren't my cup of tea but we all need to hear these things once in a while.
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