Notes for my Son is an Argentinian-produced Netflix film, which is a heart-warming true-story-adaptation of a woman’s struggle with terminal cancer. Though Netflix’s blurb tells us that architect, blogger, and prolific tweeter María Vázquez ‘writes a one of a kind notebook about life, death and love for her son to remember her by’, the notebook of the title feels secondary within the film. That’s because many Argentinians watching the film on Netflix will have already read said notebook, as María Vázquez was a real national phenomenon in Argentina in 2015, and that El cuaderno de Nippur (Nippur’s Notebook) was already into its fourth edition by 2016.
Though it quickly becomes evident, it’s worth highlighting for international viewers that this is a cinematic elegy to an Argentinian hero. Thanks to Vázquez’s attitude to life though, a playful irony that so captured the Argentinian imagination in 2015, the film almost entirely avoids the (arguably offensive) kitschiness of John Green-esque sicklit. Instead, tender optimism is confronted with bitter reality, resulting in a vivid, poetic, and grounded tale. The story is undeniably uplifting, but bittersweet.
Text is very important to María, though it’s the ubiquitous sound of iPhone typing (Twitter), as much as the quotes from the cuaderno, that mark her out to the audience as a voracious scribbler and chatterer. This concern with text and legacy (even the fact of “resurrecting” a person in film) speaks to Freud’s theory that no one is really able to imagine their own death, to realise their non-eternality, and it’s a fitting tribute to someone famous for a posthumous publication. A closing speech referencing Tennyson’s poem ‘Nothing Ever Dies’ is final evidence of the film’s sensitive literariness.
Cancer is treated with appropriate weight; its effects are portrayed unsparingly. Cleverly, for a film about a person who is shown to be so invested in the power of words, much of the tragedy is portrayed through dialogue. Much of Vázquez’s condition is reported through conversation by third parties such as her husband Fede: like the reported off-stage violence in Ancient Greek tragedy, this seems to cut across film criticism’s wisdom of “show, don’t tell”. The identities of the tellers and their feelings towards their news are significant.
María Vázquez is fantastically portrayed by Valeria Bertuccelli, who besides being a fairly good doppelganger gives a very clear impression of the wit and spirit that captivated a nation. She also shines with an understated portrayal of the encroaching effects of chronic pain. Bertuccelli is engaged in two performances, one which shows the effects of disease and one which portrays a real-life woman, both of which are equally engaging. Meanwhile, husband Fede is presented as an utterly believable, sparsely-communicative man by Esteban Lamothe. The couple’s relationship unfolds with great humanity, both María and Fede being recognisably real.
Unfortunately, Notes for My Son suffers stylistically from the conventions of its genre – not from anything actively negative, but from a lack of creativity and originality. Its mostly flat cinematography and naturalist performances are what hold the film back. That said, it is a film worth watching for its story and central performances.
Notes to My Son is out on Netflix.