Adapting Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s novel of the same name, writer/director Aitch Alberto errs too much on the side of caution with Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. That’s a loaded title for any book or movie, but thus are the ambitions of what begins as a rich and detailed story about two young men discovering a lot about themselves, each other, and their families in 1980s El Paso, Texas. A pair of wholly convincing performances bolster the surprisingly deep material, and the supporting cast offers even more credence in the way those characters are utilized and genuinely explored. The movie does all this in only half an hour, and then it turns a fatal corner into territory that is too tidy, too simplified and too rushed for a story that could easily have gone on for another little while.
Perhaps those limitations are inherent in the material, having been based on the novel (this critic has not read it and cannot attest to that). Perhaps it simply got away from Alberto, who clearly has a good movie in her on the basis of the scenes between the protagonist and his very good friend. Whatever the case, the turn is enough to register as a mild betrayal, especially since things begin with such promise. It helps that we like Aristotle (Max Pelayo), who is rather insular and private and spends most of his time in his own head. It’s a form of loneliness, to be sure, but as with all introverts, there is an internal war between wanting our privacy and desiring a social life that passes muster with everyone else.
It seems that Aristotle, who goes by Ari on account of a name he feels is pretentious, inherited this trait from his father, Jaime (Eugenio Derbez), who is similarly quiet and withdrawn in comparison to his more sociable wife, Liliana (Veronica Falcón). An older brother in the family is in prison for horrible reasons none of them ever discuss, and the family is now merely coping with whatever happened in their private bubble. Ari doesn’t really know how (or want) to make friends, nursing a crush on classmate Elena (Luna Blaise), who seems reluctant to reciprocate. Only when he meets Dante (Reese Gonzales) does anything spur within Ari an active desire to become a functioning member of society.
One might be able to see the trajectory of this relationship from a mile away, but Alberto barely cares about our response to such obvious telegraphing. The best stretches of the movie follow Ari and Dante as they talk and talk and get to know each other’s families and talk some more. A near-fatal car accident brings the two families together, at least until a summer away sends Dante and his parents (Kevin Alejandro and Eva Longoria) to Chicago. The two boys write to each other as often as possible over those three months, and so the narration, mostly delivered by Ari, becomes shared between the two of them, allowing us into both of their minds.
The solid foundation here ultimately cannot last, though, since Alberto decides to rush to the “end” of this story with a series of melodramatic incidents, dueling personal epiphanies on the part of both boys, and some easily avoidable evasion of true feelings that only acts to delay the inevitable. Through its sincere performances and relaxed sense of discovery, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe nearly works for long enough that such a disappointment wouldn’t matter as much as it does.
Photo courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment
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