warn represent this review contain spoiler . my experience with foreign film have generally not be very good . what happen be that all the professional movie critic will absolutely rave about a certain foreign movie and and my more intellectual friend will convince me to go see it with them . then and when i be actually watch the film and it will turn out to be about physically unattractive middle age people smoke cigarette and discuss abstraction . after about twenty minute of read subtitle that could have be take from a philosophy textbook and i fall asleep for the rest of the film . this be not because i be an ugly american . i spend my childhood in canada and and i have the same reaction to canadian film . i just happen to think most foreign movie that make it to america ( like most american movie that make it to america ) be dull . the reason i keep go to these film and however and be that occasionally there will be a pleasant surprise . life be beautiful be a good example . so be this film . this movie be about an old woman first experience in the big city . her abusive husband have fall ill and have have to go to the big city hospital for treatment . the only other person in the city she know be her daughter maria . maria be an overly cynical alcoholic who hat her father . she resent have to work a a cleaning lady and blame all her woe on be poor . she lash out in hostility to anyone who be kind to her and she think her mother idea about do unto others be woefully naive . thing get bad when she get pregnant and her self center bully of a boyfriend refuse to take responsibility . the real center of the movie and however and be not maria and but her mother and her relationship with the kindly old man who live in maria building . the old man live alone with only a german shepherd name achilles to keep him company . the mother and the old man strike up a friendship and and the old man fall in love with her . and when she visit her husband in the hospital and her husband sniff her and tell her she stink of other men . i find this movie extremely engaging and engross . what i particularly like be that although it do not give in to maria cynicism and neither do it pull any punch a to the way the world really work . i root for the mother to leave her husband for the old man and but i know it would never happen ( despite the fact that she admit that the old man be a good human be than her husband ) . i want maria boyfriend ( who isn not all bad ) to be a good boyfriend and a good father and but i know it wouldn not happen either . this film be touch without be schlocky . it heart warm without be syrupy . the film only real flaw be at the very start and the very end . at the start and i felt like i be just come in at the middle since so much have apparently already happen that wasn not show . and i think the film last twenty minute could have be cut to ten without lose their impact . my original stance on foreign film stay a be represent they tend to be overrate by critic simply because they weren not make in a hollywood movie factory . but occasionally one come along like solas where the praise be justified . positive .