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Not rated. () |
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All Flixster |
(822) |
432 |
2964 |
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(362) |
190 |
1304 |
Male |
(460) |
242 |
1661 |
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| Thirteen (17%) |
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Plot:
A self-styled teenage Romeo, from Manhattan's Lower East Side, is bent on seducing a girl who appears to be well beyond his reach. However, his reputation for seduction, along with the fact that he li...( read more 
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Recent Reviews
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MCT:July 9, 2008
I'm sure this movie has been called "honest" or "authentic" like five million times, but it's an excellent descriptor for it. It is a simple film, but avoids the Independent Cinema Delusion of substituting meaning for inertia. It's inventive and fun, allowing its drama to be tempered with a sense of humor and light yet believable characters.
Man, I wrote a much better review of this for class. Fuck this shit. -
MCT:June 20, 2008
Although it took a bit of thinking to get my head around the relationships in this flic (or why we needed to know about these people) it made for a good tale nonetheless.
The best thing about it is the lust for life of this group of kids. They just get about doing what kids do. I'll get back to you on the successes of licking y' lips. -
MCT:April 10, 2008
When I first saw this movie sitting in a bin of ultra cheap DVDs, the title rang some kind of bell. I'm still not exactly sure what that bell was, because I have no idea even why I would have heard of this movie.
Peter Sollett--a native Brooklynite--writes and directs the story of Victor Vargas (Victor Rasuk), a Dominican kid on the Lower East Side who tries to live life as he knows how to live it. His grandmother (Altagracia Guzman) is deeply religious and a first generation immigrant to the United States and does not understand Victor's behaviour at all, especially when contrasted with her granddaughter Vicki de la Cruz (Krystal Rodriguez) who spends her time sitting on the couch watching television and her other grandson Nino (Victor's actual brother Silvestre) who does his best to please his grandmother, playing piano and going to Mass. Victor, though, is more interested in girls, first seen preparing to have sex with "Fat Donna" (Donna Maldonado) until his friend Harold (Kevin Rivera) calls him out on it--nearly destroying Victor's (largely made up, I suspect) reputation as a "ladies' man." The two go to a pool and from there both take parallel but varying paths into attracting two girls--"Juicy" Judy Gonzalez (Judy Marte) and Melonie (Melonie Diaz). Victor attempts the macho swagger he thinks attracts women with Judy while Harold tries a fumbling even worse representation of the same approach with Melonie. Both girls are very wary of boys in general, but especially of these two.
There's a lot of back and forth nattering on IMDb as to the "reality" or "truth" of the movie, and I can't say that I'm Dominican or from the Lower East Side, but certainly the way that all of these--mostly unknown at the time--actors put together their characters (allegedly composed on a major scale from improvisation, being denied access to Sollett's script) was very real to me. I have heard the speech patterns before without a doubt, and the swagger held just the right element of falsity and hidden insecurity in Victor, who eventually reveals himself as more scared and lonely than he first appears. The condescending and defensive behaviour by Melonie when confronted with Harold's advances--usually leading to a reluctant acquiescence, one that tends to look as lacking in reluctance as it probably should be considering the way she reacts to him--is fantastically real. To see these behaviours approached in this fashion is refreshingly honest, with no explanation given, except in behaviour that correlates to real behaviour, for the incongruity in reaction and intention from these characters.
Altagracia's performance is one of the most exciting (if that's even the right word, which I can't say I'm sure about) in that she manages to portray a woman who finds the behaviour of her own grandchildren alarmingly alien, eventually completely lost as to how they have become this way and why they are so "bad" and "uncontrollable." She is not bad, she is just ignorant--which I mean only in the literal sense--and simply cannot translate the world that she lives in now from the one she remembers, where all three were young babies for her to take care of. -
MCT:March 29, 2008
Teen hormones and love in hot New York. Victor has to balance his desire to seduce Judy with the fact that his Grandma will kick him out if he tries any funny business. The fact that the actors are amateurs results in a very moving film.
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MCT:November 4, 2007
The characterizations and relationships in this coming-of-age movie appealed to my white, middle-class, middle-age sensibilities. The cultural pressures on Victor to be an über-macho pimp daddy seemed real. His strained relationships with his brother, sister, and grandmother seemed natural. His shock at his grandmother dragging him, with family in tow, to social services and declaring "I'm done with him" for being a bad influence on the family seemed to genuinely shock him to the core. His subsequent humbler and more respectful attitude towards everyone, and Judy in particular, felt reasonable and satisfying. Likewise, the pressures on the young women in the film ? and how they dealt with them ? seemed real and sensible.
But all I had as a gut check was my own suburban background, which wasn't a reliable touchstone for this movie. Was this how 21st-century black and Latino urban teens feel and act? I checked some reviews written by people who seemed, by their comments, to understand this arena. The majority seemed to validate this movie's grip on its characters lives, so I'm prepared to embrace this movie for the sweet, earnest, complex, family drama I think it is. The culture clash between Grandma's old-world Dominican Catholicism and her grandkids' more liberal mores, and her efforts to keep a splintered family together as the kids yearn to separate from her add a layer of complexity to the standard awkward teen romance story line.
There's some question about the how believable the neighborhood is, though. LA Times critic Manohla Dargis, who grew up in New York's East Village, has this to say about the setting's credibility:
I'm not really sure what he (Sollet, the director) means by realism, since no East Village summer ever looked that lovely and sounded that quiet, and I've met loads of white Brooklyn kids who are plenty real. The nonprofessionals and gritty backdrop point "Raising Victor Vargas" in the direction of documentary even as everything else -- the deracinated streets, the honeyed light -- point it toward fantasy. (The artfulness of "Raising Victor Vargas" is the most real thing about it.) Sollett has created a Potemkin East Village, but he isn't alone in his yearning for the authentic and his penchant for poeticism. Like David Gordon Green ("All the Real Girls"), Sollett belongs to a wave of artists and writers, who, united by a desire to break free of postmodernism's reflexive irony, are in the grip of sincerity.
The development of the female characters, Judy and Melanie, who are just as important to the movie, get short shrift. Why have the two girls sworn off men so early and so often? Why does Melanie submit to the advances of Victor's friend so easily? What are Judy's family dynamics? None of questions gets explored, much less answered, and there were times when the script could have substituted scenes that dealt with these issues for some of the less compelling scenes in the film and been the richer for it.
As with many low-budget, debut films, the technical aspects of movie-making: cinematography (especially shot-framing, camera steadiness) lighting, etc., are less than impressive. But what Raising Victor Vargas lacks in authenticity of scene or professional polish, it makes up for with situational and emotional veracity. -
MCT:October 13, 2007A self-styled teenage Romeo, from Manhattan's Lower East Side, is bent on seducing a girl who appears to be well beyond his reach. However, his reputation for seduction, along with the fact that he lives with his grandmother and bothersome brother in...
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MCT:August 28, 2007
Dans le genre «coming of age film», Raising Victor Vargas reste le plus optimiste. Simple, réaliste, interprété avec justesse et naturel, la première oeuvre de ce réalisateur annonce une belle carrière. Le film s'est déjà promenné partout via différent festivals de films indépendants. Les relations entre les personnages sont d'une sincérité charmante.
Du cinéma américain comme il s'en fait peu aujourd'hui. Rafraichissant! Une belle surprise! -
MCT:August 11, 2007Subtly and realistically depicts so many themes, including transnationalism, generational conflict, and emotional and sexual coming of age in a shitty neighborhood where it's better not to trust or let your guard down.
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MCT:June 21, 2007
Summer Holidays in the Lower East Side :) Latino teenagers who spend their time chatting up at the pool, in the parks, before the blocks...Judy can't bear all these macho boys, Victor likes Judy, whose best friend likes Harold, who's Victor's best friend... :)
Peter Sollett directed his first movie in his barrio, with teenagers who are amateurs, and the result is absolutely great.
The dialogues ring true (actually mostly written by the actors), they are funny, sensitive, and they picture very tenderly the teenagers' lives.
Victor Rasuk is just perfect, and Judy Marte really pretty. The character of Victor's grand-mother is really touching and Peter Sollet really took up his bet.
Anti Larry Clark style, and a wonderful movie :) -
MCT:June 2, 2007
I could somewhat relate to this movie since I live with my grandmother most of the time. I think this movie dose have a good heart.
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MCT:May 30, 2007
Thought the movie was good, jus two teens finding out who they really are underneath the false image they put out to their friends and families...
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MCT:May 8, 2007
its about victor, who is a playboy somehow. livin wit 2 other siblings and a stern, strong grandmother who is tryin to so-called raise a perfect family. its a sweet family movie. go watch!
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MCT:April 23, 2007i thought the performances in this were so honest & real,set in New York's lower east side,tells the story of Victor's quest to become a man.takes a look at family life and teenage first love,funny & moving at the same time really enjoyed watchint this.
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MCT:March 12, 2007
I think this is the cutest movie. Very rarely have I encountered a movie where I liked all the characters. This was exception.
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MCT:March 3, 2007
One of the best concerning young love and the poorer side of the economic scale. Love it love it love it!
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MCT:March 1, 2007
Unsentimental, gritty, charming, intimate, generous and compassionate. It is one of the best independent films shot in NYC I have seen.
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MCT:September 8, 2006I love watching shows with accents. I always walk away with the weird nagging feeling of having to speak like them.
So if I start sayin' stuff all weird, with a lotta the word fuck, in an accent, you'll know why.
The girl's pretty.
And I don't get how Victor has to walk around shirtless all the time. Is it that hot or summin'? -
MCT:August 29, 2006
Excellent acting. Religous grandmother from hell raising grandkids in tough neighborhoods and tough times.
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MCT:August 5, 2006
The lines and emotions were so raw and realistic that I almost forgot I was watching a movie sometimes. It essentially came of as this really touching coming of age story that I liked a whole lot. The performances were top notch and a good arguement against casting well-known actors in movies.
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MCT:June 19, 2006
Grand Special Prize, 2002 Deauville Film Festival; Made in Spanish Award, 2002 San Sebastian International Film Festival
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MCT:April 14, 2006
I really liked this. It was well accessable. I have no idea what it's really like to be a young, poor Hispanic kid. But I love Victor and really enjoyed this.
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