Bella

This indie crowd-pleaser gets points for being earnest and good-natured, and for a kind of topical daring in its subject matter. Jose, a fallen soccer star who works as a chef in his brother’s restaurant, comes to the aid of Nina, a waitress who finds herself pregnant but unready for either marriage or motherhood. Both have urgent moral dilemmas and painful family history to confront. Unfortunately, Alejandro Monteverde’s in-your-face camera style and an erratically preachy script (co-authored with Patrick Million) give the thing a note of soapy, made-for-TV hysteria that clashes oddly with the feel-good vibe of the central drama. The handsome self-assurance of the leading players (Eduardo Verasegui and Tammy Blanchard) and a bouncy celebration of ethnic food and music enhance the surface charms here but without deepening the attendant dramatic values.