Vivir toda la vida
2021 · 28m · Mexico
Directed by Marlén Ríos-Farjat
Susana struggles to get over a separation when her spontaneous neighbor Gloria, who lives in the moment and never misses a chance to enjoy life, crosses her path; through a circumstance that unites them, the two women find the strength to overcome past adversities and forge a friendship.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's the kind of film that plays it safe—two women, one sad and one free-spirited, learn to live again through friendship—and there's nothing here that makes me say 'wait, what?' Instead it confirms what we already knew about healing and spontaneity.
Ríos-Farjat situates this squarely in the intimate two-character drama tradition, with a formal sensitivity to the quiet moments between revelations, though the tonal balance between whimsy and genuine melancholy occasionally tilts toward the sentimental.
The film's real engine is the decision to let Gloria's performative spontaneity gradually reveal its own loneliness—a single scene where the mask slips does more structural work than the entire friendship arc, and that's where Ríos-Farjat's control over tone actually sings.