By Andy Webster
Originally published by The New York Times
Julio Quintana’s “The Vessel” is a modest, but not maudlin, parable of hope about mustering the strength to vigorously plunge again into life’s uncertainties after a devastating loss.
Ten years after a tsunami took the lives of 46 children in an unnamed Latin American seaside village, the surviving residents remain deeply traumatized. They include Leo (Lucas Quintana), whose mother (Jacqueline Duprey) is a mute mass of quivering sorrow still mourning the death of Leo’s brother. As for Leo, his anguish cost him the love of Soraya (Aris Mejias), who has married someone else. Only Father Douglas (Martin Sheen, performing in Spanish with masterly assurance) believes in a better future, but his efforts to encourage the locals to replenish the population have been fruitless.(“The Vessel” is being released in English- and Spanish-language versions.)
Read more from The New York Times review here.
