All the Freckles in the World (Todas las pecas del mundo)
ALL THE FRECKLES IN THE WORLD - NETFLIX
Yibrán Asuad's All The Freckles In The World is a facetious attempt at creating a highschool comedy that achieves something that none of its kind has ever before — a boring, pretentious and frustrating ninety-minute runtime.
This story of a self-proclaimed "inventor" and the youngest creep in cinema history, José Miguel (Hanssel Casillas), and his attempt at winning the heart of popular girl Cristina (Loreto Peralta Jacobson) is even blander than the synopsis makes it sound. While similar in theory to a typical high school romantic comedy that has plagued Hollywood — and the whole world — ever since the eighties went neon, the way it is delivered would not feel out of place with the NETFLIX property YOU.
For context, the first time José sees Cristina, for probably two seconds, he boldly declares that she will be "his" — even though Cristina is already in a relationship with another boy and José is aware of that. The film's attempt at showing this scene and José's declaration as "romantic" would make even John Hughes cringe in fear. Ironically enough, this scene is a perfect summarization of the whole affair, as José chronologically delves into more creepier territories while the film constantly back-pedals on his actions by showing them to be romantic.
This is not helped by the one-dimensional sexualisation of fourteen-year-old Cristina, whose every move is presented in a sexualised manner — including, but not limited to, her giving a come-hither look to a boy she never met, kissing said boy who treated her like a possession and sucking on a lollipop in almost every scene. This inadvertently gives a message to the audience that Cristina was the one responsible for triggering José's creepy and pathetic escapades. Which, if anything, tries to victim blame a character that was purely oblivious to the commotion around her. Not to mention, a second love interest for our protagonist named Liliana (Andrea Sutton) is treated ignorantly by him and yet is shown as a "cheat" when she decides to move on from him.
Something eye-catching written in the synopsis is that the film is set during the backdrop of the 1994 FIFA World Cup and one of the main reactions anyone would have after finishing this film would be, "Where is the 90's?" Neither the production design nor the dialogues make any attempt at being remotely 90's. Nobody even wears any 90's clothes to try a little bit and the backgrounds — like the school's playground and classrooms — are so contemporary that the viewer would start wondering if Olivia Wilde's Booksmart is set in the '90s. The only 90's that the audience receives is the casual sexism and creepy themes that not a sane soul would enjoy.
The soundtrack, by Pedro Zulu González, does not fare any better. It does not even manage to create a general atmosphere in a scene and mostly feels like stock music that would be available for free on a third party website. The only two aspects that seem to be somewhat competently done are the cinematography, by Matias Penachino, and the performance by Alejandro Flores as Milo — both of which in a better film would be the weaker aspects. Yet here, they exist as one-eyed kings to a blind kingdom.
By the time the credit rolls, the film has already proven it is one of the worst that NETFLIX has given the tag of an "original", which is a shame as it comes for the same site that made gems like Roma and Klaus gain the audience they deserved.
ALL THE FRECKLES IN THE WORLD is streaming exclusively on NETFLIX January 3rd 2020