El agente topo

What begins as an amusing bumbling spy/detective movie, in the ilk of The Pink Panther or The Naked Gun, slowly transforms into one of the warmest and most heartfelt documentaries you'll ever experience. The transformation occurs gradually and subtly. About two thirds of the way through, we finally understand the type of movie we have been watching all along. This isn't a spy movie - it's a story about loneliness, growing old, and the importance of human connection. The story: When a woman suspects her mother is suffering abuse in an elderly home, she hires a private investigator. The private investigator decides to hire an 83-year-old man, Sergio to enter the home posing as a new member. But he's not there for living assistance. He's there to investigate the home's staff and members, reporting his findings to the private investigator. He's there to be the mole agent. Of course, the 83-year-old spy angle is merely a hook. While Sergio quickly proves to be a comically ineffective spy, he simultaneously reveals himself to be an endlessly charming gentleman who endears himself to other members of the home. His friendships form the heart the movie and will leave audiences rushing out to hug their loved ones.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the audience surprised by this one. Expecting a Jacques Tati or Peter Sellers bumbling detective comedy, we were instead served a heartfelt look into nursing home life. I've not yet had a close relative in a nursing home but the depiction of such a life as presented in this tragicomedy rang true. I was glad to have had this close look into the small pleasures, the great loneliness, and the irrepressible human spirit in its most twilight years.

Noticing this listed on my local PBS channel, I expected an ordinary documentary. Instead I found a deeply moving, multifaceted and fullfledged movie, with unexpected "stars" who are real people, living out their real lives. It left me with the desire to know more about each of them, and huge gratitude to my family who move everything aside to make sure my father can continue to live comfortably in his own home, with daily visits - and even more gratitude for my daughter who gives up everything to keep me happy in HER home, following unexpected multiple health catastrophes leaving me disabled at 60. Watch this movie, please, and see where it touches you. If it doesn't, watch it again.

A different documentary, a fiction, a contract between a detective and a senior citizen, all fake, but it generated a beautiful documentary, moving, sensitive, delicate, dramatic and sad, the solitude of the asylum, the parties, the generosity of those works with these elderly people... Pleasant surprise in the middle of the Oscars, in a sabbatical, inclusive and social year, a pity that their competitors are strong, Coletiv, Crip and Polvo, the four deserve...

I started watching it with mistrust, but in the end it stole my heart. Amazing how reality can be so bittersweet. Recommended especially for young people.