Gloria

It’s often not revolutionary storytelling that makes films stand out and stand the test of time. Movies like Gloria come around pretty often in various forms. This one is about a middle-aged woman coping with being middle-aged and trying to find reasons to keep moving on. What separates it from films that set out to accomplish similar things are the subtleties. Gloria (a wonderful Paulina García) understatedly comes to terms that she’s in the margins of her children’s lives, and she finds small pleasures where she can, in a life that may have fewer and fewer to offer. That makes dating and sex more difficult, and this is where audiences will have to decide if Gloria’s never-say-die attitude is courageous or desperate. García, winner of Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival, isn’t letting on which way you should lean.