By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Analeine Cal y Mayor
Starring: Ariadna Gil | Carrie-Anne Moss | Don McKellar | Douglas Smith | Gonzalo Vega | Zoë Kravitz
Original language title: El Niño Que Huele A Pez
Country: canada, mexico
Year: 2013
Running time: 92
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2091427/combined
Bruce says: “Richard (Don McKellar) and Sophie (Ariadna Gil) live in a suburban house formerly occupied by Mexican superstar singer Guillermo Garibai (Gonzalo Vega); Sophie conducts tours of many rooms that are filled with kitsch and recording memorabilia. Their home is owned by a foundation that monitors tourist traffic and income. Sophie and Richard are thrilled when their son Mica is born but immediately they realize something is wrong: he smells like fish. Sophie’s motherly instincts overcome her original disgust but Richard never is able to have more than an arm’s length relationship with Mica.
“Mica grows up in isolation. Kids at school call Mica names and steer clear of him. He wears an evergreen air freshener around his neck to ameliorate his smell. His mother shuffles him from room to room as she conducts the household tours, keeping him out of smelling range of the tourists. As a mother Sophie is what one might call pleasantly controlling. One year his mother decides to throw him a birthday party; only one girl – Laura – shows up. As he ages he spends more and more time in the swimming pool or in his room listening to music. He tells his psychiatrist (Carrie-Anne Moss) that friendship is overrated; what is underrated is being alone. Mica (Douglas Smith) worries about entering the workforce once college is over – can he find employment, perhaps a night watchman or a lighthouse keeper? At the pool he sees a beautiful girl (Zoë Kravitz) who races him and teases him, yet won’t reveal her name. He begins to secretly follow the girl to see where she goes after swimming.
“One day his world is shaken. He discovers there is a name for his disease: trimethylaminuria, a rare metabolic disorder that produces a fishy odor in all bodily secretions. There is no treatment or cure. At his psychiatrist’s insistence Mica joins a therapy group for people with rare diseases, telling him he will be better off facing his pathology.
“THE BOY WHO SMELLS LIKE FISH is quite successful in depicting what it must be like to live with a disease such as trimethylaminuria. Douglas Smith’s performance is properly restrained, maintaining a mood more realistic than melodramatic. Don McKellar is marvelously mean but disappears far too early in the film. The rest of the cast does little to elevate the mediocre script. The subplot involving the Graceland-like shrine is lots of fun but fits oddly, uncomfortably, into the script. 3.5 cats
“(THE BOY WHO SMELLS LIKE FISH screened at the 2013 Miami International Film Festival.)”