From the opening shot, the esthetic of the loner invisible in the crowded environ of New York City who just wants to connect with someone sets the tone of our protagonist’s world. Gilbert, short, obese and not particularly attractive exists in a world dominated by several factors; his acute awareness of his lack of status, his obsession with his attractive abused neighbor- excellently portrayed by Dascha Polanco, the conflicted memories of his dynamic unsupportive deceased father and his controlling oppressive mother. He speaks to us as narrator of his own life and through his fixation with taking cellphone pictures of beautiful women rather than speaking to them.
In a truly stunning performance writer/director Adrian Martinez embodies the moments of cultural failure and disconnection we all feel from time to time. But this is his day-to-day existence and something has to change. A chance observation of a street crime catapults him into a local hero and this is the opportunity to rise above his anonymous status. But life is more complicated than that. The film successfully performs the delicate balancing act of representing Gilbert as a hero, loner, creepy stalker and nice guy looking for love and acceptance. The film has many scenes where the viewer may simply want to turn away from the screen but can’t. The strong performances of Dascha Polanco (Orange is the New Black), Socorro Santiago as his tragically conflicted mom and Mozhan Marno as the city detective who sees him as a damaged man in a city of broken souls, round out a stellar cast.
iGilbert is the first writing/direct feature effort of the immensely versatile Adrian Martinez. It is infused with a heavy doses of Hispanic cultural, true New York visuals and a sense of the phoenix rising from the flames. Every character has an easily digestible amount of daily pain and little avenue for successful expression or self-healing. That is the well written essence of the film. They are us and we empathize with them but thank God we are not them every day – hopefully.
— Eric Cotten, Festival Programming Associate, MdFF 2021
"There is beauty among the broken in writer/ director Adrian Martinez’s iGilbert, a dreamlike ode to human connection at a time in which our phones keep us safely cradled in our own bubble of safety….” — Filmthreat.com
“Adrian Martinez plays an isolated man looking for connection in a simultaneously classic and strikingly modern portrayal of the messy search for true connection” — New Filmmakers Los Angeles
“Incredibly creepy and sweetly endearing, all at once”— Ryan Fleck, director “Captain Marvel” “Mrs. America”
“ ‘Marty’ for the digital age” — Annette Insdorf
"Great movie… Really hit me emotionally. I love how it takes a stereotype in culture that movies either turn into joke or monsters and here, you've created a layered and very flawed human character and made me want to take the difficult journey. I buy all of it. Even the magical realism seems real. Amazing moments throughout.”--David Gordon Green, director “All the real girls,” “George Washington,” “Halloween”
iGilbert tests and pleasantly challenges audiences’ sympathies with a story of a man who secretly films women, but ends up doing a very good deed.
— MovieMaker magazine
Winner-- 2022 Best dramatic experimental feature--
Manhattan film fest
