One of the aspects of “Isa” that I enjoyed beyond the predominantly latino cast, is the fact that its heroine “Isa” is a strong individual. When we first meet her, she’s a brilliant tech wiz who sells jail breaking cards on the side for extra cash. She always seems one step ahead of everyone, even at her most vulnerable, and uses a troubling dilemma as an opportunity to find out about her shady past. She has memories of parents she barely knew, and is living a life she doesn’t quite trust to be her actual one, and she’s capable of finding out and giving the villains of the film a damn hard time working around her brain.
Writer-director Jose Nestor Marquez’s science fiction thriller is an admirable mixture of “Inception,” and “The Matrix,” with a hint of “Dreamscape,” and hits on those themes while carving out his own unique narrative. Jeanette Samano gives a great performance as Isa, a young high school student preparing to change the world with her knowledge of technology. She’s brilliant and adept to learning the language of machines, and prides herself in being able to break free from her impoverished confines. After being hit by a car during a run, Isa awakens without much damage to her body, and is discovered to be channeling radio waves of an unusual kind within her brain. These waves allow her to use her dreams as a world she can break through and infiltrate.
What she doesn’t realize is the dreams are an entrance in to the master plot of a top secret organization that’s using dreams of dead immigrant children to help them gain a hand in stock trading. How and why? I don’t know. That’s where the movie falls apart, because not only does it barely explain this whole scheme, but it seems like the movie is being used as a template for a series where they will eventually explain the logic behind the plan. Either that, of writer Marquez just made something up that just gives Isa a reason to enter dreams. I found the whole plot involving nightmares to help advance stock trades confusing and limp, despise the obvious symbolism of making money off of the misery of illegal immigrants. I would have loved at least a half assed explanation for the whole “dreams + stock trades = big money” plot element.
Isa is also apparently an engineered individual whose parents saved her from an organization, leaving a chip in her brain that was suddenly activated from the crash. Now that the dreams are mixing with reality, Isa has the power to bring down the corporation, and their leader is anxious to find her and exploit her powers. Rather than simply build an action film, “Isa” instead builds on symbolism and metaphor to create a thriller that’s subtle, and very entertaining. Star Samano’s performance ultimately makes or breaks “Isa,” and thankfully with her spirited turn as a smart and crafty girl thrown in to an extraordinary situation, Samano makes the film such a worthwhile endeavor for fans of cyber punk, and cerebral thrillers. “Isa” is obviously a film working around a small budget, but it uses that limited resource to unfold a unique and entertaining thriller. It surely has flaws that need ironing out, but nonetheless it’s a very good film. Want to watch “Isa”? Find out here.