In search of gravity, 'Bella' only drifts

"Bella" won the People's Choice Award at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, but it's hard to say why.

Surely the festival screened more entertaining films than the amateurish "Bella," a slight fable about a soccer-star-turned-chef who tries to persuade a pregnant co-worker he barely knows not to have an abortion. The film is more of an exercise in pandering and propaganda -- give your baby up for adoption, you selfish pig! -- than the heartfelt drama it aims to be.

The chef, Jose (Eduardo Verastequi), has a tragic secret in his past, though it's not much of a secret, since an overload of visual clues provides the basics long before he ever tells us. Jose gets involved in the life of waitress Rosa (Tammy Blanchard) when his restaurateur brother fires her for being late to work. When he learns Rosa is pregnant, he blows off work himself and dedicates the day to being with her.

"Bella's" creators clearly intend New York City to be a magical world where wondrous things can happen, but it's not even clear the film is set there until one of the characters mentions it. There's no sense of the setting as vital to the characters' lives, just as transition with gratuitous shots of Jose and Rosa walking the streets or riding the trains. One lovely little scene with a blind street vendor comes close to creating a spell, but it stands sadly alone and can't provide the whimsy "Bella" lacks.

Even the film's foregone conclusion introduces more questions than it answers. But there's no point in delving too deeply here. "Bella," insubstantial and trite, is as forgettable as a movie can be.