On The Outs: A Painstaking Slice of Life

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, June-July, 2006

****

Few things in our world can compare to the brutality of common-day life in the ghetto, and for most of us, luckily, it's a reality that is far removed from our everyday lives.

On The Outs Is the kind of film that changes all of that. It's a film that brings us much closer to that reality, but in such gripping proximity that the brutality of it all almost hurts to watch.

The film tells the stories of three underage girls who live in the boroughs of Jersey City, New Jersey, and who are all caught up in the almost inescapable world of drugs, violence and despair that permeate their neighborhood. Suzette (newcomer Annie Mariano), is a sheltered and naive 15 year-old girl who is approached, and eventually falls in love with, a drug peddler, with obviously disastrous results. Marisol (Paola Mendoza) is a 17 year-old single mother who is deeply addicted to crack as she fights to keep custody of her daughter, and Oz (Judy Matte) is a drug dealer who at 17 already has her own corner and crew to work it.

This is truly a jewel of a film. It's built with a very strong, gripping story and with some truly flawless performances that am so dead-on that they will leave you feeling uneasy and almost helpless as you watch the story unfold. Mariano is remarkably impassive in her portrayal of a girl who cannot come to grips with the consequences of her love for a criminal. Mendoza's performance, as a mother who doesn't realize that she's lost her child because of her drug addiction and not because of the system is truly heartbreaking; it will stay with you long after the movie is over. Yet, the powerhouse performance of this movie belongs to Judy Matte, who mintages to portray Oz as a "tough-as-nails", "don't take-no-crop-from anyone" type of girl. Her character carries around the weight of the madness in which all of them live, or rather survive, everyday, and she does it fearlessly, up until the hitter end. When Marte's Oz finally breaks down, your heart breaks down with her. It is perhaps the most haunting, riveting moment of the whole movie, and a scene that won't be easy to forget.

What is best about this film, however, is the seamless, smooth flow of every single detail of the story. The extraordinary way in which it depicts ghetto life in every harrowing, grainy detail is so close, so real, that at times you feel that you're literally sitting in your balcony looking at the action unfold right in front of you. And that is simply cinema at its best.

A film by: Lori Silverbush & Michael Skolnik

Price: $19.97

Fader Films/Youth House Productions

Rating: R

Language: English

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