Gabriela

REVIEW
What happens when a nice guy falls in love with an unavailable woman? This is the question posed in Gabriela, Miller’s directorial debut. Unfortunately, the emotional, ethical and psychological elements of such a question are never even adequately examined, much less answered. Set against the backdrop of a rather unlikely clinic where social workers spend more time socializing and laughing at their clients than anything else, Miller’s tale unfolds quickly after a rather perfunctory set-up of its characters: Mike (Gomez) is a good-looking stud who just can’t find a beautiful woman to be in love with; he’s got a wise-cracking sidekick who has a suave (read: slimy) facility with the fairer sex. There’s even a younger brother whose role it is to season the movie with flecks of cynicism that might or might not be relevant to anything in the main story. Of course, handsome Mike meets the title character, a down-to-earth Mexican beauty (well-played by the gorgeous Lopez) and they can only deny the chemistry for so long. Trouble is she’s engaged to a hyper-Anglo attorney (Galligan) and you know the rest. Once the trio’s cards are all on the table, Miller’s script stalls and we are taken from one repetitive hushed conversation to the next. A love triangle like this one always provides filmmakers with opportunities to explore the moral ambiguities and dilemmas of "love" versus "obligation" and "new" versus "familiar." and it is a shame that Miller’s Gabriela squanders this opportunity.