It’s odd to describe a movie about suicide as sweet, but that’s exactly the vibe of Mexican writer-director Mariana Chenillo’s debut feature Nora’s Will, which focuses on the immediate fallout of the title character’s death by her own hand. We never really get to know Nora, who begins the movie by meticulously organizing her belongings and writing instructions for the aftermath of her demise, all while Chenillo’s camera avoids showing the woman’s face. Chenillo isn’t interested in why Nora committed suicide, but in how that act brings together the various people in Nora’s life and forces them to confront issues they’ve been avoiding for years.

The Details

Nora’s Will

Fernando Lujan, Ari Brickman, Angelina Pelaez

Directed by Mariana Chenillo

Not Rated

Beyond the Weekly

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Chief among those is Nora’s ex-husband Jose (Fernando Lujan), who lives just across the street from her despite their divorce two decades earlier. Jose discovers Nora’s body and finds himself in charge of settling her affairs, a complicated endeavor that involves a meddling rabbi (Max Kerlow), Nora and Jose’s son Ruben (Ari Brickman) and his family, Nora’s psychiatrist (Juan Carlos Colombo) and Nora’s longtime maid Fabiana (Angelina Pelaez), all of whom have their own ideas of how Nora’s memory should be honored. Although there are conflicts and revelations, the movie takes a low-key approach to it all, focusing on Jose’s quiet stubbornness in the face of so many demands from people he barely knows. Lujan does an excellent job of showing Jose’s internal struggle as he learns some unpleasant truths about his ex-wife, and the supporting cast provides warm comic relief without undermining the gravity of the story.

Chenillo’s sporadic use of flashbacks is more distracting then illuminating, and the subdued approach means that some important moments are unduly underplayed. Nora’s Will isn’t a movie about grand gestures or heated showdowns, but sometimes its tone slips from measured to sleepy. The sweetness carries it through, though, and when the squabbling characters sit down at the end of the movie to a Passover dinner planned by Nora, it’s a lovely moment that says as much in silence as any heated family argument could.