The Sub­sti­tute

Lucio (Juan Min­jín) is unset­tled from the off in Diego Lerman’s The Sub­sti­tute: his new Buenos Aires flat is sparse­ly fur­nished; the class he has just become sub­sti­tute teacher for a class that thinks lit­er­a­ture is use­less; and his daugh­ter, who he shares cus­tody of due to a fair­ly ami­ca­ble divorce, is becom­ing a teenag­er too fast. On top of that his father, who is known as The Chilean and seem­ing­ly has a fin­ger in every com­mu­ni­ty pie, is sick, and one of his stu­dents is involved in some dark drug stuff. 

Shots through show­er glass and half door­ways hint at the frag­ment­ed nature of the plot – Woj­ciech Staron’s stormy cin­e­matog­ra­phy also reflects the lay­er of mid­dle-aged dis­il­lu­sion­ment that Lucio views occur­rences through. Every­thing that hap­pens in The Sub­sti­tute is ground­ed in empa­thy built for Lucio– we see pre­dom­i­nant­ly through his kind, watery eyes. Minjín’s per­for­mance is sub­tle and com­plete­ly believ­able – ex-nov­el­ist Lucio is prag­mat­ic but a bit down­trod­den, teach­ing and there­fore unsure if he can do. 

He’s a sol­id addi­tion to the influ­en­tial edu­ca­tors in cin­e­ma canon – he’s not up there with Robin Williams in the Dead Poets Soci­ety or Jack Black in School of Rock, but he could pos­si­bly hang out with Adri­an Brody’s Hen­ry from Detach­ment. As he attempts to help his stu­dent Dilan (Lucas Arrua), who is seri­ous­ly threat­ened by a local druglo­rd, Lucio is drawn fur­ther into a dan­ger­ous world which he is con­stant­ly being warned not to stick his nose into. 

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, he begins to break through the tough, dis­in­ter­est­ed sur­face atti­tude of his stu­dents by ask­ing them to tell their own sto­ries – ​‘I don’t care about the poem, Prof’ becomes an infre­quent response, and they begin to trust him. Through them, Lucio comes to under­stand more about the dog-eat-dog world which Dilan inhabits. 

The atmos­phere is smog­gy with ten­sion and is built by the com­pe­tent cast and rein­forced by delib­er­ate­ly min­i­mal music and a mut­ed colour scheme. But the rich­ness of the scenes and per­for­mances are occa­sion­al­ly undone by the mul­ti­ple dead ends with­in the plot. There is, for the most part, con­stant build up with lit­tle cathar­sis. No one char­ac­ter oth­er than Lucio is giv­en quite enough time to grow, although his inter­ac­tions with daugh­ter Sol charm­ing­ly reveal the frus­tra­tions and the ten­der­ness between them. 

Lucio’s father’s social role is nev­er ful­ly revealed, and the cul­mi­na­tion of Dilan’s arc is clear but unsat­is­fy­ing. The impres­sion giv­en is that a patch­work of Lucio’s mem­o­ries are being replayed in a way that is not quite lin­ear and con­tains lit­tle analy­sis as to their inter­sec­tions with the film’s themes. Though on one hand it’s a relief to find a film that does not dwell on potent expo­si­tion, the lack of fol­low-up on var­i­ous sto­ry­lines makes it dif­fi­cult to judge the sig­nif­i­cance of cer­tain events, or the rea­son for their inclusion.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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