Maple Leaf Dreams (2024) review

I feel like the movie sometimes does not know what it wants to be. One moment, it feels like a film, then suddenly a vlog, then almost a documentary. The camera and lighting treatments keep jumping around too. The depth of field and highlights are not consistent from scene to scene. Some shots look polished, while others feel almost like guerrilla filmmaking. L.A. Santos cannot act for me. His performance feels kind of cringe and forced. Kira Balinger did a decent job, but I also did not completely buy her as a poor girl. She just naturally looks too sheltered and well off for the character. The only real emotional highlight for me was the scene where a woman said that her child wanted her to stop working while holding a fistful of coins in his hand. She spends her time taking care of other people’s children, yet cannot properly take care of her own child because she has to work. That one really landed. Other than that, most of the subplots felt predictable or very typical. Watched on Netflix.