Memories of a Teenager [Yo, adolescente] *** (2019, Renato Quattordio, Thomas Lepera, Malena Narvay) – Classic Movie Review 13,536

Renato Quattordio stars as a teenage boy who begins writing a blog about his daily life after the after the suicide of a close friend and a fatal fire at a nearby concert, in the 2019 Argentine teen drama film Memories of a Teenager [Yo, adolescente].

Director Lucas Santa Ana’s 2019 Argentine teen drama film Memories of a Teenager [Yo, adolescente] stars Renato Quattordio, Malena Narvay, Thomás Lepera, and Jerónimo Giocondo Bosia. It is written by Lucas Santa Ana, based on the novel by Nicolás Zamorano.

After the suicide of his best friend and the fatal fire at a local concert, Zabo (Renato Quattordio) writes everything he feels and experiences about his daily life and high school in his blog Memories of a Teenager between 2004 and 2005. Zabo begins to question his sexuality, and starts to become intimate with different people.

A lot of good work and a tremendous main performance highlight a painful journey through the Memories of a Teenager, sensitively handled by director Lucas Santa Ana. The familiar situations are made fresh by the sensation that we don’t know where the story is actually headed, and it ends up unexpectedly but frustratingly. The plotlines don’t really prepare us for the anguished ending. so this is disappointing as well as upsetting, as intended.

The back story with Pol (Tomás Agüero), the boy who has committed suicide, is not explored in the depth it needs to make us care and understand, and it remains crucial to the hero’s present. The hero’s new relationships are explored successfully, but none too clearly defined, but maybe that’s deliberate, and subtle.

The hero is young and undefined, yet he seems by far the most capable and intelligent of all the group, including his parents. Maybe he is just too thoughtful and sensitive for this world. Why is Zabo so sad? Why is he having such a trouble connecting. Mmm, why?

It says all the right things and is a very sympathetic portrait of the teenage boy mind, but feels a bit unreal and moralistic, while remaining appealing and likeable however, thanks to the deeply layered angst-ridden character of the troubled hero and the talented actor playing him.

Do we never really know how troubled the people around us are? Maybe that’s often true, certainly sometimes. Is Argentina really such a bisexual culture as this? Maybe. And so accepting?

After festival screenings in 2019, the movie premiered on July 23, 2020, on the Cine.Ar channel. Netflix release it on November 12 2020.

It won awards for Best Feature Film at the 2019 Festival Internacional de Cine de Viña del Mar and the 2019 Festival de Cine Iberoamericano de Huelva, where Renato Quattordio also won Best Actor.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,536

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