Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl (like lost, as in he can’t find her). Boy hooks up with friends, old and new, to find the girl. Boy finds girl.
It may sound formulaic, and in many senses it is, however 200 Cartas has just enough originality, and downright silly fun, to keep you laughing out loud at the antics. Written and directed by Bruno Irizarry, and filmed in New York City and Puerto Rico, 200 Cartas exhibits the talents of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jaime Camil, Dayanara Torres, Monica Steuer and has a special cameo by Iris Chacon.
Lin-Manuel is Raul, an aspiring graphic novel artist, who works a boring job that leaves him plenty of time to daydream new adventures for his imaginary hero, Iro. Raul sells his comic books out of his messenger bag and cannot come up with the next episode in Iro’s story no matter how much daydreaming he does, you see Iro lost his woman at the end of edition three and Raul can’t figure out how to get them back together. He allows his work buddy Juan to talk him into going to a club after work. While at the club, Raul meets a young lady who is wearing the same pendant worn by his hero Iro’s lost love. Disaster strikes and the young lady disappears leaving Raul holding her pendant. Raul decides that he must return the pendant but all he has is her name and the fact that she was returning to Puerto Rico, Juan of course insists that he must come along.
Nothing can keep him from going to Puerto Rico, but once there he has to figure out how to find her among the 200 Maria Sanchezes in the phone book. After a day of calling as many Marias as they can, they decide to write letters to all of them, hence the title of the movie, 200 Cartas. Raul and Juan hire Yolanda and Rebeca to drive them around the island to meet all of the Marias who respond to the letter.
A madcap race throughout Puerto Rico, that portrays both the touristy and real Puerto Rico, becomes a tale worthy of Odysseus. However instead of running into Cyclops, they come across armed muggers, runaway cats, broken down cars, and eating too many mangos when there is no toilet paper (don’t ask). Without disclosing the ending, it’s safe to say that Iro found his Irauna.
While I admit that the the scenes that give a comedic twist to the crime problem on the island made me cringe a bit, the filmmaker made up for it with the portrayal of the generosity and kindness of the residents. The film takes the audience through cities, small towns, mountains, and seasides with an almost reverent attention to showing the real Puerto Rico, not just what you see in travel brochures. While the film is tri-lingual (Spanish, English, and Spanglish) there are captions for the Spanish-challenged.
Lin-Manuel is a delight in anything he does, Dayanara Torres was a charming Yolanda, Jaime Camil and Monica Steuer, as their Mexican sidekicks, raised the comedy to a higher level.
Kudos to the animator. It takes true talent to turn scenery and situations into graphic novel mode.
This film is currently playing in New York City and we’re asking for audiences to come out to support Latino film so that the rest of the country could get a chance to see it also.
Support Latino films, especially the good ones.