A slight anecdote expanded to slightly beyond its natural length, The Empty Hours is nevertheless time well spent.
The Empty Hours(Las horas muertas)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Spain, France, Mexico · 2013
1h 40m
Director Aarón Fernández Lesur
Starring Kristyan Ferrer, Adriana Paz, Eliseo Lara Martínez, Amaranta Abril
Genre Romance, Drama
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On the desolate coast of Veracruz, young Sebastián, 17, has to run his uncle's motel single-handedly, renting rooms by the hour. That's how he meets Miranda, a regular customer who goes there to wait for a lover who often arrives late, sparking a fleeting game of seduction between the two.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Los Angeles Times by Betsy Sharkey
Like everything else about this lovely film, life, love and emotional growth are marked out in lush, languid, luminous terms.
Aarón Fernández captures one of the most heartening elements of sex: that it doesn't always oblige our rules or expectations.
Fernandez (“Used Parts”) has a masterful handle on narrative, structure and character, skillfully blending them all in a tale with atmosphere to spare.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Working with grace and patience, Mr. Fernández makes the mundane captivating.
Village Voice by Zachary Wigon
Full of long takes and matter-of-fact performances, melancholy low-contrast cinematography and desolate vistas suffused with acute loneliness, The Empty Hours captures the feeling of idling away the time, waiting for something to arrive.
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