Sadly Over-hyped

As Good As It Gets

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

I am an admirer of Sosa's for more than 20 years and her music still appeals a lot. This documentary unfortunately was quite chaotic. It jumps back and forth through the decades. I also had difficulty sometimes following what was said because there were quick switches between voice-overs of her son and Mercedes herself. For me the style of presenting the material was also too sentimental. Mercedes Sosa has made lots of great and strong songs; I only heard/saw a couple of them in this movie: the music in the documentary seems disproportionately focused on the rather slow songs. It would have helped me if there was a (neutral) narrator treating Sosa's career and life in a more organised way, and I think it would also have helped if there was a neutral interviewer, instead of showing her own son meeting all kinds of people and interviewing them himself. The movie makes it easily clear, though, that Sosa has a great voice and that her heart was with the people. Probably most Sosa-fans will enjoy watching this movie, but for me it was quite disappointing. Her music remains great.