Mark Reviews Movies: THE CUBAN

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 30, 2020

The central relationship and, by extension, mystery of The Cuban are tender and sympathetic. Alessandra Piccione's screenplay, though, becomes far too busy with characters and subplots that never quite connect with that core story. They become too much of a distraction from the movie's heart.

That relationship is between Mina (Ana Golja), a pre-med student working at nursing home run by her aunt (played by Shohreh Aghdasholoo), and Luis (Louis Gossett Jr.), a resident at the care facility suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's. Assigned to feed Luis during her shift, Mina discovers that music, especially the Cuban jazz that her grandfather used to play for her as a child, attracts the man's attention and re-ignites his memories.

We learn a little about Luis from these moments of clarity. He was a famous musician from Cuba, who had a successful career after performing in the United Sates, but since has been forgotten.

Mina is convinced she can use music to make Luis happier and more aware during this final period of his life. Her aunt and the facility's head nurse (played by Lauren Holly), on the other hand, only want their residents to be comfortable, fed, and safe.

There's a solid moral and ethical conflict at play here, as well as the mystery of Luis' past—what happened to his personal and professional lives, why he couldn't return to Cuba, how he ended up in Canada. All of that, though, is more or less dropped for a series of additional, often undeveloped conflicts and a lighter tone to go along with some more optimistic developments. Mina's family history, as a child of refugees from Afghanistan, and connections are touched upon, as a reason for her aunt's stern attitude about her career and education, and she starts dating Kris (Giacomo Gianniotti), another medical student who admires her efforts with Luis.

All of these relationships come to a boil and are cooled with such ease that we wonder what the purpose of any of them really are. That's especially true because there really is such emotional promise to the bond between Mina and Luis, played with such bittersweet authenticity by Gossett. Piccione and director Sergio Navarretta evade the easy trap of sentimentality for a while in The Cuban, but as the movie begins to push Luis and his story into the background, such an approach becomes the only available option.

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