Impossible Things

Most movies about "unlikely friendships" feel like they were assembled in a lab by scientists trying to synthesize tears. You know the formula: take one grumpy senior, add one wayward youth, stir in a shared hobby, and wait for the third-act misunderstanding. But Ernesto Contreras—a director who previously broke my heart with the linguistic elegy I Dream in Another Language—doesn't do formulas. In Impossible Things (Cosas imposibles), he takes that familiar skeleton and breathes something hauntingly, specifically human into it.

I watched this on a Tuesday afternoon while my neighbor’s kid was outside unsuccessfully trying to learn the recorder, and the persistent, squeaky struggle of those notes felt like the perfect unintended soundtrack. This is a film about the clumsy, difficult, and "impossible" effort of moving on when the world expects you to just fade away.

The Ghost in the Living Room

The film centers on Matilde, played by the legendary Nora Velázquez. For those who grew up with Mexican television, seeing Nora Velázquez—famous for her comedic persona "La Chabelita"—deliver a performance of such quiet, brittle vulnerability is a revelation. Matilde is a widow, but her husband Porfirio (Salvador Garcini) hasn't exactly left. He sits in his armchair, criticizing her cooking and reminding her of her failures. He is a literal ghost, a manifestation of decades of domestic abuse so ingrained that Matilde doesn't know how to breathe without his permission.

Salvador Garcini plays the dead husband not as a soaring supernatural terror, but as a banal, nagging presence. He is the most polite monster in recent cinema, lounging in the corner of the frame like a piece of furniture that refuses to be moved. It’s a brilliant way to visualize trauma; the abuser doesn't need to be alive to keep the door locked.

Then there’s Miguel (Benny Emmanuel), a young man living in the same sprawling, sun-drenched housing complex. He’s a "dealer," but he’s the least intimidating criminal you’ll ever meet—he’s mostly just a kid with a messy life and a deep well of untapped empathy. When these two collide, it isn't over a shared love of jazz or gardening. It’s a collision of two people who are equally invisible to the rest of the world.

A Contemporary Loneliness

Released in 2021, Impossible Things arrived at a moment when the world was collectively reeling from a period of forced isolation. While the film isn't "about" the pandemic, it feels deeply connected to our current era of urban alienation. We live in boxes stacked on top of boxes—much like the Unidad Independencia housing complex where this was filmed—yet we rarely know the name of the person on the other side of the drywall.

The cinematography by César Gutiérrez Miranda captures this beautifully. He uses the architecture of Mexico City to frame Matilde and Miguel in ways that emphasize both their confinement and the slivers of light that manage to get through. It’s a "streaming era" gem that likely got lost in the shuffle of big-budget franchise saturation, which is a shame. While we’re all distracted by multiverses, Ernesto Contreras is reminding us that the most expansive world is the one that opens up when you finally tell a ghost to shut up.

The script by Estéfani Enríquez Soto treats Miguel’s youth and Matilde’s age not as obstacles, but as different dialects of the same struggle. There’s a subtextual richness here regarding the changing face of masculinity and the way older generations of women were taught to endure the unendurable. It’s cerebral without being cold, and philosophical without needing to quote Plato.

The Beauty of the "Impossible"

What I appreciated most was the lack of romanticizing. Matilde doesn't become a "cool grandma," and Miguel doesn't suddenly give up his complications to become a saint. They just... become. The chemistry between Nora Velázquez and Benny Emmanuel is electric in the quietest way possible. Their friendship is a series of small rebellions—sharing a joint, sitting on a rooftop, or simply acknowledging that the other person exists.

Turns out, the film’s title is a bit of a trick. The "impossible things" aren't the ghosts or the unlikely bond; the impossible thing is the idea that we are ever truly finished with our lives before we’re in the ground.

It’s worth noting that while this film won the Audience Award at the Morelia International Film Festival, its path to international audiences has been quiet. It’s a "hidden gem" in the truest sense. In an age where representation is often discussed in terms of demographics, Impossible Things offers a different kind of representation: it represents the people we walk past every day and assume have nothing left to say.

Impossible Things is a gentle, piercing reminder that we are the architects of our own hauntings. It manages to be a movie about abuse and loneliness that somehow leaves you feeling lighter than when you started. If you’re tired of the bombast of contemporary blockbusters and want a story that rewards your attention with genuine emotional honesty, find this one. It’s a small film with a massive heart, and Nora Velázquez deserves every flower the industry can throw at her.