M’m m’m good

By Sarah Wostenberg

Love and strife are the main ingredients in Tortilla Soup.

The combination of a talented cast and creative filmmakers produced an intelligent and heart-filled drama worth watching.

Tradition and values are high in the priority list for the Narango family. Viewers follows the family’s traditions while they attempt to keep those values intact. All of the characters in the family are different, as they experience changes exclusive to their age and gender, and it seems impossible to keep these the same in a changing world. As these problems lead to humorous and tense situations, together the family adapts to each of these problems.

The family consists of a father and his three daughters, and each of the daughters’ priorities in life differ from one another. The eldest daughter keeps religion and teaching as her top priority in life, the middle daughter is mainly concerned with her career, while the youngest is occupied with a new love and college enrolment. The family discusses these issues while fixing, eating and cleaning up after dinner.

The movie was well done. Tortilla Soup had lots of variety between scenes which made the flow fast, and maintained smooth transitions between dinner and discussion. The characters’ problems were realistic and believable as part of a modern family.

Cooking was at the centre of the household, saving viewers from boredom as each character was interesting and multidimensional. The movie addressed many problems that occur in family life without resorting to violence or foul language, which occurs all too often in recent movies.

Tortilla Soup was heart-warming and realistic. There wasn’t one hero, and each character was portrayed in the same light and were not
perfect.