wrightiswright Well that was... interesting. Most Beautiful Island plays like your standard drama of a foreigner struggling away from home after escaping a horrible event in America, taking on any embarrassing job she can to pay the rent of her parasite infested apartment.From handing out flyers in an embarrassing costume to babysitting two little brats, nothing seems beneath our poor Spanish immigrant, and we're sure for a long time the film is going to end either in tragedy for her or reach a pivotal moment where she packs it all in and flies back home.Instead, she gets an invite to a private party along with a few other attractive girls, and no it is NOT for the reasons you might think. After getting all dressed up and leaving her phone outside (as per requested) she enters the underground festivities to discover... well, that would be telling.Sufficed to say, the last twenty minutes will be the most anyone can remember, not because they're particularly graphic or disturbing but they're just... odd. Is there really a secret network of people in the USA who get off on this sort of thing? Would they actually pay top money to see it?I have my doubts. What isn't in any doubt though, is while Most Beautiful Island is an exercise in mind-numbing mediocrity for most of it's length, I give it credit for giving me those moments I shall recall for a long time.Notice I didn't say 'cherish'. That was intentional. 5/10

screechy_jim There isn't really much to this film or at least there isn't for the nearly the first 45 minutes. Its unfortunate because its after this time the real story begins which is decidedly more interesting and entertaining that what precedes it. Even so, its not enough to redeem the film.The first 45 minutes really details the difficulties our lead faces as an immigrant in NY. The story goes into some considerable and unnecessary detail with her situation and because there is little dialogue or interaction with her on this front we don't really get any emotional investment in her character. Mostly your left watching a series of boring on screen events. You observe the problems she faces due to a lack of finances while wondering when something significant is going to happen. There is also little or no musical accompaniment so you have only tedious screenplay to clue you in and absorb you into her situation.The pace of the film is very slow throughout. Scenes are very elongated so you end up with very long periods where little happens, or it happens in the midst of a long sequence of trivial events that really add nothing to the proceedings. Most of the content in this film would have ended up (quite rightly) on the cutting room floor of any Hollywood production, but in truth there isn't a lot of material here to begin with. Realistically without the padding this film would really only be 20-30 minutes long.There is little character or plot development and no real story progression. The underlying plot is a good one but hasn't had the development necessary to produce anything substantial. I think the main issue with this movie is the majority of it exists solely as a segue to the final section where the real story lies. Unfortunately this final section is thin, premature and lacking enough material to thicken out the story. What left is tale worthy of little more than a film short. The lead is quite good and does well with the material. There are no major roles here so other than the lead most other parts are fairly trivial; but they're handled reasonably well considering as was the direction. Its clearly a small production, probably without the resources larger films have to plug holes and address shortcomings, but I think the writing/producing is lacking. The story is mostly filler and that doesn't bode well for keeping you focused as you yawn and drift off in places.If you have idle time, watch it but I would advise against putting time aside to see it, it's just not worth it.

ninasimone2018 there were parts in the movie that made no sense not to mention the so called party. for example why having the bath scene where she was watching how the roaches kept coming out of the wall...save yourself an hour of life because the sick game that the woman got herself into was so hard to believe even though the movie was inspired by true events. however there was a similar sick game shown in one of the last episode of montalbano as well...it is still hard to believe that at that age a woman would got herself into such situation so willingly and naively and by all means not that desperate just looking for shortcuts in life without the hard work... while she must have had somewhat an idea the job had to be dangerous risky or at least very uncomfortable. 3 out of 10 points only because I actually watched the whole movie so it must have kept the attention. that is the only value and showing some sick entertainment choices of some circles of people that can even lead seemingly normal life during the day, which is really nothing new.

JustCuriosity Most Beautiful Island was extremely well-received at Austin's SXSW Film Festival where it won Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature. This eloquent film explores the experiences of Luciana, a recent undocumented immigrant, who has recently arrived from her home land and is just trying to get by in New York. The film focuses on a single day as she takes various odd jobs and then gets invited to work at a mysterious party where she will be extremely well-paid for a single night's work. The suspense builds towards a truly shocking and deeply disturbing climax. This film shows the truly dark side of the American Dream and the truly disturbing nature of class privilege in a society with huge gaps in class and, therefore, power and privilege. The story is described as inspired by true events so there may be some exaggeration in the actual climax, but it is still quite powerful and leaves the audience awestruck. Ana Asensio directed, wrote and stars in this fascinating and absorbing film. It is beautiful written, filmed and acted. The tension builds towards the disturbing climax. The American Dream is not always what it seems to be and needs to be re-imagined for our current economic and political realities. I hope the film gets distributed so more people can learn to empathize with the immigrant experience which has sadly become a political punching bag in recent years.