“Somewhat unfulfilling, as if pieces of the puzzle are deliberately kept from us.”

Somewhere in the foothills of the Argentinian Andes, Simon leads a lonely life with his single mother and Agustín, the man who took them in and who Simon helps with his moving business. When the 22-year-old falls in with a group of young people from a home for the mentally disabled, a world opens up for him. Suddenly he has friends he can hang out with, girls he can fall in love with, and a freedom he has never truly known in his protected life. But although he is on anti-psychosis medication, he isn’t truly mentally disabled; he just plays along. The more he embeds himself in his new group of friends, however, the closer he comes to endangering them.

To employ a cast mostly comprised of mentally disabled young people is quite a gutsy move, especially if it’s your debut, but Argentinian director Federico Luis took the plunge. His lead is rising star Lorenzo “Toto” Ferro, best known for 2018’s El Angel, but the group of people his Simon finds a sense of belonging with are all more or less playing a version of themselves. And Luis shows that, staying with the idea of Simon of the Mountain, these are people full of capabilities and deserving of more acknowledgement and acceptance than people with mental disabilities get in society. People like Pehuen Pedre (as Simon’s partner in mischief) and Kiara Supini (as his tentative first girlfriend Colo) give complex performances that can rival Ferro’s already strong work.

This requires a lot of trust on both Luis’ and the cast’s part, because a project like this runs the risk of exploitation, especially for a film in which the protagonist, however understandable his reasons are, plays at being mentally disabled. The script, which Luis co-wrote with the film’s editor Tomás Murphy and actor-director Agustín Toscano, walks a fine line, as only after an incident in a swimming pool locker room does it dawn on the audience that Simon might actually be different from the others. The film tenderly shows him not wanting to be an outsider and longing for contact with his newfound pals, against the wishes of his mother and the man they live with. Still, it is hard to gauge Simon as a character; he is clearly faking mental problems, but there is also clearly something not quite right. It makes it hard to fully sympathize with him, and it is only after he saves Colo from drowning that his good intentions are fully convincing, displaying a sweetness in both of them in the film’s most touching scene.

On an artistic level Luis uses a simple handheld cinematography so characteristic of low-key arthouse drama, but inventively plays with the sound by using a hearing aid, given to Simon as a gift, as a clever device to develop his character. Simon, touched by the gesture as if nobody has ever gifted him something before, wears the device whenever he wants to block out the sound (of his mom berating him, for instance). The muffled soundscape this results in internalizes the character in such scenes, but also serves as a signal of Simon’s heightened and possibly explosive emotions in those moments. Unfortunately much of the context lying at the heart of these violent outbursts that define the relationship between Simon and his mother is hidden. Old home videos of a young Simon show a father who is no longer in the picture, so there are definitely hints at the cause, but the mother’s bitterness towards Simon remains unexplained. This, combined with Luis teasing us about his protagonist’s nature for the longest time, leaves Simon of the Mountain somewhat unfulfilling, as if pieces of the puzzle are deliberately kept from us. But Luis’ direction and the great performances by Ferro and the disabled actors tilt the impression in favour of what is ultimately a strong debut.