Buscando Una Sonrisa (1972)

In the dire times we’re living these days, we long to smile and feel happy & we seek this with whatever makes us feel this way. In the case of Jose Jose in his first feature role, he “searches for a smile” through daydreaming of days that were special to him & meeting someone that he truly loved.

Our young protagonist Jose (Jose Jose) is a young college student who loves his mother dearly since she’s about the only person who understands him and she’s also the only family member that he has. When Jose is not with his mother, he’s usually hanging out with some of his friends from school, but he’s so very timid & shy that he differs very much from his friends whom are outgoing & can easily talk to girls. When Jose‘s mother unexpectedly passes away—his sadness and loneliness consume him hard.

To try cope with the tragedy, Jose daydreams of the time when he went to Acapulco with his friends whom plan to pick up all the girls out there, but of course Jose distances himself from the frolicking & just daydreams at the beach instead. When Jose meets the wealthy blonde bombshell Carla (Nadia Milton) —he instantly falls head over heels for her. Jose’s shyness hits hard here as he’s afraid to go up & talk to her, but eventually him and Carla get to spend time together and a little romance even blossoms. As this daydream comes to an end, Jose is back to facing the present time where his mother is now gone and hasn’t seen Carla for a while. Will Jose’s life become well again with the help of his friends? Will he ever see Carla again? Or will he end his life as he once told his mother?

It took me a while to get around to finally watching Buscando Una Sonrisa ("Searching For A Smile") and once I did, I was left with an unexpected impression. The movie at first came off so surreal & puzzling. Why surreal & puzzling? Because I was under the impression that Jose was literally lost in a daydream throughout the whole movie just like Carlos of Muñeca Reiña. After several viewings & reading other reviews I came across, I realized I was not exactly right nor too wrong either since Jose here does indeed daydream a lot here, but he’s not completely lost in them. When Jose sings, we feel what he feels since he longs for Carla & he expresses it with songs like “Buscando Una Sonrisa” and my favorite “Cosas Imposibles” which he plays on the guitar on the beach as he watches Carla socializing with one of his friends. It’s also funny to note that the opening credits song of Buscando Una Sonrisa is “El Triste” which is one of Jose Jose’s most famous songs. It made me wonder why the movie wasn’t just called “El Triste” instead of Buscando Una Sonrisa since Jose is a real triste (sad) kind of guy.

Buscando Una Sonrisa is one of Ruben Galindo’s best dramas and his most oddest as well. The movie at times feels real, but with like my first viewing, It felt surreal at times with the whole daydreaming thing going on and the ending even felt unrealistic. Without giving away the ending, I will say it seems that Jose once again daydreams one last time and it’s the sappiest of endings ever. Way too sappy & way too good to be true even; but again this is a sappy drama so maybe it was all for real. I do want to say it wasn’t though just to make the movie more interesting sounding (Is this kind of interpretation allowed?).

As awkward as he sometimes looked—Jose Jose still did a pretty good job at acting here and of course his singing is the best part of the movie. Every song here he sings makes you want to fall in love for the first time all over again. Leading gal Nadia Milton as Carla is pretty good too and her presence alone gets your eyes very excited since she’s quite the pretty girl and her overall demeanor is quite admiring.

After Buscando Una Sonrisa, Jose Jose would go on to star in several other movies that are far more memorable than this one. Still though, I wanto hype this movie up because this is the Jose Jose movie that started it all and it’s definitely worthy of a viewing. You shall not be disappointed.