The new film Corina is a candy-colored confection that handles its premise with heart and humor.
Pity poor Corina. Her kindly single mother Renee is an agoraphobic, hasn’t left the house in years. She’s limited her daughter’s life to the radius of one city block in Guadalajara, Mexico. Corina, now 20 years old, clings to routine. She counts the steps to work every morning, to the publishing house where her father used to work. On the way she stops for a coffee—same order every day— at a bodega that she is distressed to see is expanding into the storefront next door. Change is in the air and Corina isn’t comfortable with change.
Even though Corina works in the most harmless editorial department—she’s a “style corrector”—she is swept up in the crisis of the moment. Her boss has received a manuscript from their most successful author, X. Silverman, who has decided to end her popular franchise, and likewise the company’s bestseller. The publishers panic. Mousey Corina covertly reads the pages and rewrites the book, asking her mother, “Do you think cowards can have a moment of courage?” Too shy to take credit, Corina’s version is inadvertently published, and attributed to Silverman, whose intention was to off her beloved protagonist by suicide.
Events take a turn with a road trip, Corina and Carlos—a handsome hombre (Cristo Fernandez) whose mere presence gives Corina a nosebleed—traveling to locate the mysterious Silverman and try to curb the damage. (You’ll recognize Mr. Fernandez from TV’s Ted Lasso.)
The film takes a sprightly tone, matching Corina’s rituals to a drum tattoo. But in quieter moments she delights in the creative process, floridly piling on the metaphors and slashing swathes of punctuation. “Once the red pencil stabs the paper it’s impossible to stop,” the narrator tells us in voiceover.
The acting is as brisk as the mise en scéne. Naian González Norvind plays Corina as wide-eyed, virginal, and skittish, not quite convinced that the outside world is for her yet yearning to participate. Ms. Norvind projects impish appeal and has an impressive list of credits, having worked in TV in the US and Mexico, and with directors like Gus Van Sant. Carolina Politi casts a benevolent figure as mother Renee, a prisoner of her own neuroses. Mariana Giménez and Laura de Ita round out the cast.
Director Urzula Barba Hopfner has said that Corina grew out of her own agoraphobic episodes while working abroad. She’s fashioned something special here. Despite Corina’s lighthearted exterior, it handles some weighty topics: identity, ownership of your ideas, ownership of your own life. She keeps the action buoyant, and the whimsey works. The color palate is Almodovar with notes of Wes Anderson. This is Ms. Hopfner’s first feature film.
Corina is an engaging parable about a bygone era, all the more charming as retro: the computers are clunky and revisions still happen on hardcopy.
Corina. Directed by Urzula Barba Hopfner. 2024. In Spanish with English subtitles. Runtime 96 minutes.