Argentine Stars Make for a Radiant ‘Autumn Sun’

Eduardo Mignogna’s lovely “Autumn Sun,” a story of mature love, teams Norma Aleandro and Federico Luppi, who are two of Argentina’s most distinguished screen stars and major presences in the international cinema.

Among their many movies, Aleandro and Luppi are perhaps both best known for films dealing forcefully with their country under its brutal military dictatorship; Aleandro for the Oscar-winning “The Official Story” and Luppi for “Time of Revenge.” Aleandro also won a best supporting actress nomination for her performance in “Gaby: A True Story,” and more recently Luppi starred in the deliciously macabre Mexican horror picture “Cronos.”

Here Aleandro is cast as Clara Goldstein, a chic, attractive middle-aged Buenos Aires accountant whose personal ad is answered by Luppi’s handsome, silver-haired Raul Ferraro, a widowed picture-framer. He was so drawn to Clara’s ad that he introduces himself as Saul Levin, but Clara sees through his ruse immediately.

She does accept his card, however, and contacts him again, saying she needs someone to pose as her boyfriend while her Boston-based brother visits her after many years’ absence. Not surprisingly, Raul wonders why she doesn’t simply tell her brother the truth, but Clara insists that he would be greatly pained to discover that she’s lied to him about having a man in her life.

Attracted to Clara, Raul agrees to become Jack Goldstein and undergoes a crash course in Jewish customs and learns to sprinkle his conversation with Yiddishisms. Just as we start thinking that this is a highly contrived device with which to launch a presumed romantic comedy, Mignogna goes for depth and seriousness.

No wonder Aleandro won the best actress award in the San Sebastian Film Festival for her portrayal of Clara. She’s so extraordinarily gifted in expressing the inner life of Clara that aspiring actors might well study her performance--you could say the same for the endlessly versatile and subtle Luppi and his limning of the reflective Raul.

With one long-term relationship with a married man behind her, Clara has allowed herself to get steeped in routine and an abiding, stifling sense of what is proper. She is self-absorbed in her own small world to the extent that she is cutting herself off from life whereas Raul, older than Clara and more aware of mortality, sees the importance of taking risks, the value of trying to live life to the fullest. Clara in her convoluted way has reached out to him, but will she dare allow emotion to wash over her?

The answer is not at all predictable in this elegant, graceful film that tells a familiar story as if it had never been told before. “Autumn Son” is so timeless and ageless a love story that even younger audiences should be moved by it.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: adult themes.

‘Autumn Sun’

Norma Aleandro: Clara Goldstein

Federico Luppi: Raul Ferraro

Jorge Luz: Palomino

Cecilia Rossetto: Leticia

A Capitol Entertainment presentation. Producer-director Eduardo Mignogna. Executive producer Lita Stantic. Screenplay by Mignogna and Santiago Carlos Oves. Cinematographer Marcelo Camorino. Editor Juan Carlos Macias and Javier del Pino. Music Edgardo Rudnitzky. Art director Jorge Ferrari. In Spanish, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes.

Exclusively at the Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869, and the Town Center, 17200 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 981-9811.