Popi

A film set in New York. Abraham Rodriguez is Puerto Rican. He lives in East Harlem and has two sons. His wife is dead. He works three jobs. Cleaning by day, waiting tables in the evening, another job at night. Still the money does not stretch. The neighbourhood is bad. Drugs, fighting, and nothing taught at school. He can see no future for his children. One day he reads a story. Children who fled Cuba have reached Florida and America has taken them in; cameras, offers of adoption, scholarships. An idea comes. From there the film is a story of planning. The man drills his sons in Spanish. He teaches them a story. They will be Cuban, their family will be dead, and they will be found at sea. He saves money. He buys a boat. They go to Florida. He leaves them out on the water. The plan is this: the Coast Guard will find them and they will be news. From there the narrative takes place at sea. The two boys wait for days. The water runs out. The engine fails. What the narrative is interested in is not migration but desperation: its idea is that the father loves his children, and that for exactly that reason he sees abandoning them as the only way out. The narrative builds this in a comic tone, and that is what is most argued over. The boys are found. They become news. Then a problem appears. The children want their father. The ending is not left entirely open but no resolution is given either. Alan Arkin was nominated for the best actor Oscar. He is not Puerto Rican, and that was criticised at the time and since. It was shot in real streets in East Harlem. Arthur Hiller directed. Alan Arkin, Rita Moreno, Miguel Alejandro and Rubén Figueroa are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes late-1960s American cinema and social comedy. Who it is not for: anyone looking for consistency of tone; the narrative tells a very heavy subject in a light register and that shift does not work for everyone.