Bit of an odd one, this, since the true story is fairly shocking and mostly fascinating when boiled down to just one or two descriptive sentences, but somehow fails to extend that shock and fascination out to a measly hour and a half. Set in Patagonia in 1960, an Argentine family are moving to an abandoned but still beautiful hotel they’ve inherited, and along the way cross paths with Josef Mengele (Alex Brendemuhl), a German doctor who takes an odd fascination with the family’s youngest daughter, Lilith (Florencia Bado). She is twelve years old, but apparently is suffering from the opposite of a growth spurt, and finds her new classmates picking on her for being shorter than the rest of them.
Unbelievably, despite everything else that is eventually revealed about Mengele, this is the major lynchpin for the plot of the movie. Mengele offers a cow-tested drug that will help Lilith grow, her father doesn’t want it, but her mother inexplicable does, so off Lilith goes to get tested on, and she begins to develop a little crush on her new doctor.
Oh, did we mention that Mengele is a former Nazi who performed horrific experiments under Hitler’s rule? Isn’t THAT a much more interesting story to focus on, rather than a slightly short girl who doesn’t want to be slightly short anymore? There’s also stuff involving Lilith’s father wanting to make clock-work china-dolls, Lilith’s new teacher in school also being an undercover agent sent in to uncover hidden Nazi’s, and lots of potentially interesting stuff about Lilith’s mother that is never really dealt with.
It’s not that the Wakolda is boring, it’s just with a much, MUCH more interesting story constantly happening in the background, we’re never really fully invested in what’s happening in the foreground, no matter how well directed or finely acted it is. Not so much a missed opportunity, as it is a film that marks out an opportunity, and then carefully navigates around it.
