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Life and Nothing More

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Spain, United States · 2017
1h 53m
Director Antonio Méndez Esparza
Starring Andrew Bleechington, Regina Williams, Robert Williams, Ry'nesia Chambers
Genre Drama

On the edge of adulthood, Andrew yearns to find his purpose as a young African-American in today's America. As his mother longs for fulfillment outside of parenting, Andrew is forced to take on the mounting pressure of family responsibility. His search for connection with an absent father leads him to a dangerous crossroads.

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What are critics saying?

83

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

Life and Nothing More may be shot with the unblinking attention of Frederick Wiseman’s films — and share their same broad scope of concerns — but it’s always true to the tenderness of its title.

90

Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein

It’s a vital, singularly crafted film that simply tells it — or more specifically shows it — like it is through the eyes of a struggling African American single mother and the adolescent son she desperately wants to keep out of trouble against the mounting odds.

75

The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak

By letting the cast improvise their reactions through the lens of their experiences, Esparza finds truth instead. By highlighting Bleechington and Williams’ performances, he exposes how injustice is the new “normal” and how the consequences of one’s misfortunate reverberate well beyond him/herself.

91

The Playlist by Jessica Kiang

If part of the great power of cinema is in being a visual medium that can somehow give form to the intangible, Esparza’s sophomore film is exemplary: it makes manifest such enormous, politicized intangibles as race, class and gender relations through the authentic portrayal of real lives, real people, vividly played.

80

The Hollywood Reporter by Jonathan Holland

Located somewhere between family drama and social crit, the quiet but intense Life stands out mainly for the compelling naturalism of its non-pro performances and for a script which teeters dangerously on the edge of preachiness without falling in.

90

Screen International by Jonathan Romney

So compellingly directed and acted that for much of the time we could almost be watching a documentary, Life and Nothing More is an involving, quietly moving piece that eschews conventional narrative shape to offer a multi-layered depiction of exactly what the title promises.

88

Slant Magazine by Pat Brown

Antonio Méndez Esparza crafts a revealing portrait of life as lived under a regime of race and class oppression.

80

TheWrap by Robert Abele

Life and Nothing More wants to be a window where no part is unsmudged or unnecessarily ornamented, and the view is remarkable for showing what you rarely see in two movie hours: a respect for the naturally compelling immediacy of the everyday struggle.

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