Leonor Will Never Die

The phrase 'love letter to cinema' has been thrown around a lot recently, with both Babylon and The Fabelmans being marketed as odes to the magic of the movies. But where those films peered behind the velvet curtains of Hollywood to reveal the complicated truth, Leonor Will Never Die is a whole-hearted shrine to an altogether less glossy world of popular culture. 

The film follows Leonor Reyes, a retired screenwriter who finds herself trapped in her own script, a grimy revenge flick, when she falls into a coma. Where Leonor’s waking life is a quiet, slow world of mundanities, director Martika Ramirez Escobar shoots the coma scenes in the style of a 1970s-era exploitation film, full of stylised camera movements, choppy editing and funk-influenced scores.

Unlike the simplistic pleasures of the genres it imitates, Leonor Will Never Die can be too clever for its own good; scenes such as Leonor predicting what her characters will say next emanate a Hollywood-esque smugness that can become grating. What saves the film is Escobar’s palpable love of genres that are often the subject of critics’ scorn. From the child selling bootlegged shoot-'em-ups to the woman who declares she would rather starve than stop watching soap operas, there is a palpable fondness for mocked mediums. Though Leonor Will Never Die sometimes threatens to implode underneath the weight of its meta-commentary, its originality and earnestness make it endlessly charming. Like the movies it celebrates, it isn't high art, but that just makes it all the more magical?