Ernesto's Manifesto

Mrs. L.A. stopped watching The Walking Dead after Carl died. I’ve been recording them, but can’t watch them. And she’s getting very tired of all of the coronavirus commercials. So she chooses what we watch. The other night, it was Ernesto’s Manifesto. It’s a happy little romantic comedy that was just the ticket for escaping from the generally depressing things we’ve been seeing lately.

Ernesto is a waiter in a Mexican restaurant. He’s a gentle, loving soul. Since people are shit, he loses his job, his home, and his girlfriend. Being a rom-com, he finds himself in ever-better situations. We got some good laughs.

Ernesto’s Manifesto reminded me of Being There, but not ‘heavy’ like the latter. People took advantage of Chance Gardner for their own ends. There weren’t such machinations with Ernesto. Still, like Chance, Ernesto was happy in himself. I found the acting, especially at the beginning, a bit uneven. Not bad, but typical of good low-budget productions I’ve seen. Many of the actors are known, so I put it down to the direction. Either the later scenes were better directed, or I just got used to it. Either way, it didn’t bother me as I was having so much fun watching the story. There’s a certain character who’s a giant douche. I was born and raised in Southern California, and I don’t remember encountering anyone like him. I know they exist, so maybe I was just fortunate. Or sheltered. Or something. His character was necessary for the story, but I never encountered a person acting like him in a public place

Ernesto’s Manifesto is a simple film. It’s sweet. Ernesto is sweet. We needed that.

[Moderating]

I have no idea how big a spoiler that was for The Walking Dead, but in any event, I’ve tagged it.

It was Season 8, which was two years ago.

It’s the most recent season available here in Panama. I would have been pretty annoyed at that big a spoiler if I hadn’t already watched that season. I reported it because I had to stop reading the OP in case you had blown some other spoilers. (It’s actually worse to spoil an unrelated show since people will have no idea to avoid the thread from the title.)

It’s also visible in the mouseover for the thread in the forum list.

Since this thread has been pretty well hijacked, with zero replies about the film, I’m going to ask that it be closed.