It’s taken quite some time for Bella to reach our shores, having first been seen at the Toronto Film Festival in 2006. But now it’s here and screening in selected theatres. Bella is sSet in New York and the film’s premise goes that once Jose (Eduardo Verástegui) was a famous and successful soccer player, but now he is a chef in his brother Manny’s (Manny Perez) restaurant. However, today he finds that Nina (Tammy Blanchard), the waitress his brother just fired is pregnant and Jose feels compelled to leave work and help her. For the most part, the film follows Jose and Nina as they spend the day trying to figure their lives out.

It’s a quite a slow burning film was we follow these two characters spending their ‘day off.’ Half the time they spend amusing themselves and meeting people and the rest of the time is spent trying to work things out. Surprisingly, it’s not as boring as you might expect thanks to a strong cast of character. While Nina makes emos look bad, Jose is quietly intriguing, as he reveals his personal life slowly throughout the film. But more interesting are the supporting characters populating the film, making it feel alive. While Manny is stressed and cheap, by contrast the rest of their family are festive and humourous. The scenes with Jose’s family members together have terrific spark. While the characters do make use of Hispanic stereotypes, the performances are endearing and likable. Even the characters that appear briefly, such as the blind man (Herb Lovelle) or the angry customer (Peter Bucossi) and store owner are memorable.

Bella definitely keeps you interested for the most part thanks to these people, but at the same time it has a hard time telling a story. The film has a messy structure that is often interrupted by flashbacks to Jose’s past. This wouldn’t be so bad if the whole ‘tragic past’ thing wasn’t so overbearing. At most, you can get away with just one moment in a film in which a character confides in another and reveals their dark, emotional secret history. But doing it twice is pushing the boundaries of believability and lameness a tad far, revealing the device for what it is; a tired cliché. Humans are far more complex than this overused storytelling device gives us credit for. It also doesn’t make sense that a film with such believable performances would resort to such a cheap storytelling method not just once, but twice. There’s also a ridiculous amount of sobbing and crying. While we’re on the lame and overused elements of this film, there are several moments in which the sound all becomes vague and numb. This works incredibly well if you’re in the middle of a brutal war in Saving Private Ryan, but it’s just overdoing it in this film.

It’s a shame because there was a much better film to be made from this. With a few re-shoots, re-edits and changes in the sound design, this could have been far better experience. Bella won’t bore you and it will entertain for the most part. But it’s definitely not a good film. Once the 91 minute running time is up you’ll take nothing of significance away with you aside from your choc top wrapper.*

*Cinema staff appreciates it if you don’t just leave your stuff crammed into cup holders, just as I appreciate not having emotionally flustered characters crammed into a film.