18 Presents (2020) Movie Review

Dedicated Review For Mothers

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Being a mother is one of the most beautiful things one can be, I suppose. "18 Presents" is a movie that  tries to make you understand what it's like to sacrifice so much for your baby. Also, it tries to make you realize how hard it is to grow up without a mother by your side. But in the mean time, it clear as day, doesn't achieve neither of these goals.

The movie follows Elisa at first. A woman with a lovely house, steady paycheck, and a handsome husband, she's also pregnant as well. Love is in the air, seems like nothing is gonna tear them apart, but something does. One day, Elisa, our mother-to-be, gets real bad news after she faces some troubles. In the hospital, after her doctor's after examination pep-talk, she gets informed that she has a tumor, and it's inoperable due to her pregnancy. Doctor's speech feels like she has cold feet, instead of a cancerous tumor, which makes the scene ,the one that's supposed to be key point, lose all it's value.

So after realizing she can't see her baby grow, Elisa decides to get her baby 18 presents, one each for her every birthday until she turns 18. Elisa dies in the birth of Anna. And we get to see Anna the newborn baby in hospital for the first time. Our daughter, Anna, grows up in fast forward, and we get to see that she actually does enjoy the first few gifts, but not any after some point. She feels like it's a reminder for her to realize she doesn't have a mother. So we see her angry and sad in most presents. And in her 18th birthday, she nearly gets her friend killed in a training in pool. Her dad gets real angry, scary angry, and soon shows where Anna gets that behavior. After that, Anna just runs away from home, but doesn't seem to know much about oncoming traffic in the highway, so she gets hit by a car. She then gets up and get in the stranger's car to be treated in the stranger's house, nothing is strange about that girl's behavior anymore. Anyway, she then realizes that the stranger woman who hit her is her own mother, and she somehow traveled back in time. She then lies to her mother about her identity normally, to learn more about her mom, and the reason for her time travel. In this journey of weeks long adventure, she gets closer with Elisa, questioning her all life and behavior.

Even though it's not that bad to take risks, this time travel story is a bit odd still. First of all, it's really odd not to see much about the presents, as in the title of the movie, for such a long time. I thought time travel was about Anna discovering the idea behind presents, but not really it seems. Movie follows Anna learning about the life of her mother and father before she was born. Which doesn't make so much sense since as a 18 year old, she should know about these already, possibly. I mean, didn't she know anything, anything at all about her mother's daily life? How can you feel surprised about where your mother worked back in the day? Then it's good that her father at least told her the mother's name I guess. The story locks itself to the cabinet for a long time, leaving viewer to watch a lot of scenes of Anna and Elisa chatting, shopping and yelling. Only after the first 50 minutes, we finally reach the part about gifts. After all the time spent with her mother and all the eureka moments, Anna just freaks out about the gifts, throwing all of her character development into garbage. The story is too slow until that part and doesn't give you any reason to stay focused. After that part though, the movie is trying to be bold. And I must say, I just liked it,believe it or not. Yet for the most part, the film is looks like more of a science fiction than a drama.

The movie had no problems with brightness or scenery. I didn't like the lack of soundtracks, but it didn't feel like a drag mostly anyway, so it was OK. Co-writer and director Amato shows potential with his shooting, but fails to show us a unique method. But at the end of the day, he proves he can be a director of real unique(sort of) movies, not just cliches.

"18 Presents" fails to reach the destination and gets lost in it's own script writing. Still, even though it's not revolutionary, it's still a tiny little break to see a mother's love for her child. And a father's simplicity? In the end, I think the movie could be much better, if it was about what it was supposed to be about.  Still, it's not a bad movie, and deserves to be watched as it is. Watch it with your mother perhaps.

Cinemortals Rating : 6/10

Reviewed By : Batuhan