Beautiful and raw combination of lyricism and realism in debut drama about a woman with cancer running to her gorgeous, polluted home island to face herself. When Noelia finds out that her cancer has spread, she sets aside the search for new procedures and abruptly goes from San Juan back to Vieques, the island where she grew up in southwest Puerto Rico. At home with her mother, in this place with which she is intimately tied (where the beaches are as marvelous as the sea is polluted, in the traces of US colonialism), she seeks her individual strength and takes part in environmental activism one last time. At the same time, a hurricane approaches. Glorimar Marrero Sánchez creates her own visual language in a film that tells us about disfigured bodies and land, and that both enchants and simplifies. A magnificent Isabel Rodriguez in the leading role gives Noelia dignity and an enormous power. And mediates that there is also a light in grief.
Johnny Casar (Mickey Rooney) runs away from a home for wayward boys, tired of being teased about being short and a poor athlete. He soon finds a pair of roller skates and is befriended by Bruno Crystal (Ralph Dumke), who allows him to wash dishes at his café, while a priest who runs the home, Father O'Hara (Pat O'Brien), secretly keeps an eye on him. A traveling roller-skating team takes an interest in Johnny after he shows some aptitude. He clashes with Mack Miller (Glen Corbett), a cocky champion, and falls for Mary Reeves (Beverly Tyler), another top skater. Johnny ends up featured in grudge matches against Miller, where they take turns one-upping one another. As his fame grows, Johnny becomes every bit as arrogant as Miller and more. Life takes a bad turn when he is diagnosed with polio. A long period of physical therapy follows, until a wheelchair-bound Johnny tries to get his life back on track.
