Ema: NZIFF Review

Director Pablo Larrain's fiery Ema is a film where bad people struggle for your support.

A bleach-blonde Mariana Di Girolamo is Ema, a dancer whose marriage to Gael Garcia Bernal's Gaston is on the rocks after a child they adopted was taken away from them.

Self-destructive in extremis, but looking for the need to become a mother, Ema decides to throw everything up into the air, and pursue her own desires and dreams...

Ema is supposed to be a film of a soul of a fiery nature burning brightly and looking out for number one, but the narcissistic Ema is a distinctly unlikeable protagonist, with a way of rankling and needling viewers rather than getting support.

Fortunately, in Mariana Di Girolamo, Larrain has found a mesmerising actor who transcends the darker nastier edges of the material and who elicits sympathy in less obvious circumstances.

Which is a good thing, because large swathes of Ema fight very hard to get you offside

From character motivations that are hard to fathom to narrative leaps which are utterly ludicrous and almost contemptible, Ema is a film that's stretching credibility to say the least.

However, Larrain's eye for some stunning visuals and outstanding colours ensure Ema is worth enduring - and certainly while realism takes a battering, Mariana Di Girolamo's burning star makes it just about worth sitting through.