SXSW 2025 Review: CORINA, Style Corrector of Her Own Life

I love this movie.

Corina
The film enjoys its North American premiere at SXSW 2025. (Photo Credit: Mandarina Cine)

I am a longtime proofreader. And a copy editor. And an editor. And a Managing Editor. To say this movie spoke to me is putting it mildly.

Corina, played endearingly by Naian González Norvind, is described as the "style corrector of her own life" by the film's narrator, and that description is apropos of her character: she works with something that's pretty good and makes it better.

As a style corrector at the publishing division of a newspaper in Guadalajara, Mexico, where her father worked for many years, she works in the building's basement, which suits her personality. She was given the job out of gratitude for her father's work, but she is relegated to working on erotic novels and is fully conscious that she is employed at the absolute bottom level of the company.

Her mother developed severe agoraphobia after her husband (Corina's father) died, and has not been able to leave her house for many years. Correspondingly, young Corina found her world shrinking too. Now 28 years of age, she can leave the house, stop at a nearby grocery store, and go to the publishing house to work, but only because they are all located within the few square blocks in her neighborhood.

At the grocery store, young owner Fernanda shows her and her mother kindness, a quality that her newly arrived cousin Carlos (Cristo Fernández) also shows to Corina. At the publishing house, her boss Lili is all business, but understands Corina's limitations when she makes assignments to her.

Directed by Urzula Barba Hopfner in her feature debut, the early stages of the film percolate nicely as the characters are introduced and we see them in action, accompanied by a percussive soundtrack, featuring original music by Gus Reyes and Andres Sanchez. The publishing house comes to a crisis point when their best-selling author, who lives in a small town many miles away, delivers the concluding pages of the latest installment in a top-selling series. Lili and her leadership team fear that the negative tone of the conclusion will lead to poor sales that will devastate the business.

Corina, who has been writing her own, unpublished material for years, gets the idea to involve herself in the crisis, which leads to many complications, and then requires an unprecedented journey (for her) in order to preserve her job and save the publishing hour.

Many delightful wrinkles ensue, as the characters, especially Corina and Carlos, are delineated further, and the story takes unexpected bumps along the way.

In her performance as the titular character, Naian González Norvind shines. She is shy and reserved; unable to speak to strangers and even those she has met before, she must convey nearly all her emotions through her facial expressions and body language with subtle gestures and meaningful glances. It's a terrific performance.

Cristo Fernández, who I just saw playing a bit part in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and who also played a key role in Ted Lasso, plays Carlos, who doesn't quite understand Corina, until they spend time together. Their gently developing relationship is a thing of beauty.

Set in the year 2000, the production design by Lou Perez Sandi is outstanding, capturing period details that bring the publishing house and the surrounding neighborhood to life. Suffused with empathy, Corina is a gentle and lovely story that is told with a great deal of kindness and that resolves in an unexpected manner.

Did I mention that I love this movie?