BELLA

DETAILS PG/92mins./Out now

DIRECTOR Alejandro Monteverde CAST Eduardo Verástegui, Tammy Blanchard, Manny Perez, Angélica Aragón

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IT'S DIFFICULT TO FATHOM WHY this slight, saccharine weepie has secured a UK release four years after it was made. The central non-romance between disgraced footballer-turned-chef Eduardo Verástegui and pregnant waitress Tammy Blanchard meanders through the kind of day in New York that only existed in 1940s Christmas movies, while the various subplots involving his parents and adopted siblings are as negligible as the backstory anecdotes that Verástegui and Blanchard periodically share. Moreover, the camerawork and editing contribute to a stylistic hotchpotch that only serves to emphasise how emotionally manipulative, vacuously elliptical and relentlessly sentimental the film is. PP **