1140. Introducing Laura (2010)

 Starring: Martha Higareda, Kuno Becker, Mónica Huarte

Director: Fez Noriega

Running Time: 98 mins

Introducing Laura (Te presento a Laura) is a Mexican film about a young woman who, upon discovering that she is not going to live past April 30th, sets out to accomplish one of her greatest goals: to save someone’s life.

This is a nice, easy-going comedy-drama with a relatively uplifting feel to it, and although it does ultimately disappoint in delivering a captivating and emotionally impressive story, you’ll be able to enjoy the positivity it brings most of the time anyway.

The good thing about this film is that, with what is a pretty cheesy premise about being good to others and helping, it doesn’t feel too pushy or preachy. The main character, Laura, played very well by Martha Higareda, is immediately likeable and easy to relate to, and that really helps in the opening stages as you’re fed a lot of positive, optimistic stuff that would generally just annoy you.

As a result, the beginning of this film is pretty pleasant to watch. Apart from the mysterious reason for Laura’s imminent death, it’s very easy-going and upbeat, with quirky characters here and there and some good jokes to boot.

However, as the film goes on, you have to say that the positivity does get a little too much. Although there are more negative, but actually interesting, subplots beneath the happy façade, this film’s overwhelming feel is one of optimism right the way through, but after an hour and a half, that can get really tiring.

And this is where the story itself begins to fall apart. It’s all well and good that Laura has a positive outlook on life and wants to do good before she dies, but it seems that the film completely forgets that she’s actually dying.

Although the film starts mysteriously by not revealing the reasons for Laura’s impending demise, the rest of the film just uses that as a vehicle to make her do all these positive things and fall in love with her new friend Sebastian, without ever pausing to really look at her situation. As a result, she always seems far too happy for it to be believed that she’s actually about to die, and that makes for frustrating watching sometimes.

On the whole, Introducing Laura isn’t an awfully over-happy film, and it does succeed in lifting your spirits at the beginning, but it ultimately falls short of an interesting and convincing story that could have provided some genuine emotional drama and pathos had it not taken the direction of a generic romantic comedy-drama, and that’s why it gets a 6.9 from me.