Big enough to change course
For a person who weighs 450 pounds, walking down the block might as well be a trek through the Andes. While Alejandro Guzmán Alvarez’s Mexican indie “Walking Distance” moves as slowly as its corpulent hero, it’s mostly gentle and sweet, if you can forgive its somewhat unsatisfactory third act.
Fede (Luis “Luca” Ortega) is mostly confined to his small apartment. His caregivers are his sister Rosaura (Martha Claudia Moreno) and brotherin-law Ramon (Mauricio Isaac). After one visit when they show him photos from their trip to Oaxaca — for Fede, a frontline report from the outside world — he becomes obsessed with photography.
To that end, he takes a rare trip outside his apartment, an exhausting trip to a nearby photography shop to get some rolls of what the old-timers call “film” developed. With his entry into a brave new world, he buys a digital camera and gains a new friend: Paolo ( Joel Figueroa), the teenage worker at the photography store owned by his father.
This unlikely odd couple mostly hangs out at Fede’s apartment as Fede learns to work the camera. Through his images, he learns to see people and spatial surroundings differently, and that inspires him to take his own trip, with Paolo and Ramon. The three share the common bond of being trapped: Fede by his weight, Paolo by his authoritarian father and Ramon by the domineering Rosaura.
But plans are in jeopardy when Fede’s old heart problem lands him in the hospital. Will he get to go on his trip after all?
Ortega, an untrained actor who is actually a musician and wrote the score for the film, is effective as Fede (Ortega’s large figure is augmented by makeup prosthetics). Also good news: Alvarez and cinematographer Diana Garay Vinas never make “Walking Distance” feel claustrophobic despite slow pacing and the large number of scenes in Fede’s small apartment.
Note: Alvarez will do in-person Q&As after the 7 p.m. shows on Friday, June 23, and Saturday, June 24, at the Roxie Theatre, 3117 16th St., S.F. (415) 863-1087. www.roxie.com.