‘Olmo’ Review: A Broken Stereo and Bedridden Father Present Real Challenges to a 14-Year-Old on a Quest for Love
Christian Zilko
Navigating life as a 14-year-old boy has been a challenge for just about everybody who has ever tried it, but Olmo (Aivan Uttapa) has it harder than most. With his father Nestor (Gustavo Sánchez Parra) confined to his bed — or, on the very best days, a wheelchair — due to multiple sclerosis, he’s forced to share caretaking duties with his working mother Cecilia (Andrea Suarez Paz) and his high school sister Ana (Rosa Armendariz), who is none to happy to see her social life interrupted by the needs of an ailing parent. The situation would be traumatic enough under any circumstances, but Olmo is also consumed by the same existential horniness that fills every 14-year-old’s waking days. He’s close enough to the world of high school parties and beautiful girls to understand that he wants to be a part of it, but clueless about how to leave childhood behind and embrace the so-called freedoms that come with teenage life.
Fernando Eimbcke’s charming coming-of-age film “Olmo” exists within the tension between a family’s life-or-death problems and the youthful misadventures that just seem that way through the eyes of a teenager in 1980s New Mexico. With Nestor’s condition potentially taking a turn for the worse and the family facing eviction if Cecilia misses any more shifts at her waitressing job, Olmo has plenty to worry about. But most days, his biggest concern is vying for the attention of his neighbor and crush Nina (Melanie Frometa) — without ever speaking to her or showing any hint that he might be interested, of course.
Those conflicting demands of Olmo’s time come to a head when he and his friend Miguel (Diego Olmedo) are invited to one of Nina’s parties on the condition that they supply a stereo. He tries to rebuild Nestor’s broken rig under the supervision of his audiophile father, but disagreements about which wires to connect turn into a painful argument that shines light on Nestor’s bitterness over his own lack of autonomy and the ways that Olmo feels his own wings have been clipped by his father’s constant needs. In a fit of anger, he commits his family’s cardinal sin and leaves his father unsupervised for the night — a risk that forces the young man to confront the limits of an idea like independence when you live within a family unit.
Imagine an alternate version of “Napoleon Dynamite” where everyone’s situation was played for sincerity rather than cynical irony and you’ll have a rough idea of the vibes that “Olmo” captures. Eimbcke never shies away from the awkwardness of Olmo and Miguel’s lives, from their unfashionable outfits and lack of social skills to the Odyssey that’s required to produce a working stereo that would grant them admission into a party that only a high school freshman would ever think is cool. Some scenes could veer into cringe comedy if directed by someone with less empathy for their characters, but Eimbcke keeps his story rooted in the idea that this entire family is just trying their best in a world that never bothers to offer them a helping hand.
There’s certainly a more serious story hiding within “Olmo” about the toll that a parent’s declining health takes on a working class family. But with just 84 minutes to work with, Eimbcke and co-writer Vanesa Garnica use a light touch to hint at the bleakness of the situation without ever engaging with it too directly. By telling the story through the eyes of such a young protagonist, Eimbcke is able to minimize the stakes of some events while inflating those of others to tell a balanced story that should leave audiences smiling. Because at the end of the day, “Olmo” isn’t a story about disabilities — it’s about perspective and the way that youth warps it, for better and worse.
Every time the film comes close to lampooning Olmo and Miguel’s bumbling attempts to fit in, Eimbcke implicitly asks for our empathy by forcing us to recall how the things that were monumentally important to us at 14 now seem lame in hindsight. For all its impressive attention to culturally-specific details, you don’t need to be Hispanic, from New Mexico, or a child of the ’80s to appreciate the film. All you need is some cringe-inducing memories of your early teenage years. In other words, “Olmo” is truly universal.
Grade: B+
“Olmo” premiered at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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