Valentin

Though there's hardly a crying need for another movie about a cute urchin playing the matchmaker for his single father, writer-director Alejandro Agresti treats the familiar subject in an agreeably quirky fashion in Valentin, which features tiny, prodigiously bespectacled Rodrigo Noya as the charming juvenile lead. Set in Buenos Aires during the 1960s, the film centers on the titular nine-year-old tyke (Noya), who lives with his somewhat batty grandmother following his parents' divorce. Since his mother has broken off contact, Valentin tries to arrange his father's marriage to his latest girlfriend, the lovely Leticia, but the boy's honesty about his dad's flaws sours the relationship. That doesn't stop Valentin's matchmaking, though, as he directs Leticia instead toward his neighborhood friend, a lonely piano teacher. While the film has some obvious tearjerker elements--a subplot involving the grandmother's illness, for example--and some of the comic bits are a tad clumsy, Agresti's hand is generally light, and for the most part the cast moves deftly between humor and pathos (it was a mistake, however, to have the story narrated by a grownup Valentin--a device that makes the movie seem like an autobiographical audio book with illustrations). Still, Valentin sidesteps the pitfalls more often than not, emerging as a moderately engaging tale of a precocious child who longs for a family. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a 12-minute interview with director Alejandro Agresti, and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a winsome foreign film.] (F. Swietek)