Middle-aged and erratic, Oscar is a failed writer who has given up on life. Unemployed and living with family, he wanders the streets of Medellín in a drunken stupor, lamenting the state of literature in his home country, where he has succumbed to the cliché of the tortured artist. However, the opportunity to mentor a young student offers a chance at redemption, if he doesn't screw it up first. Ubeimar Rios stars in Simón Mesa Soto's Un Certain Regard Jury Prize-winner A Poet, a raw and riotous farce about how good deeds are often met with the universe's idea of cruel and unusually poetic punishment

It’s one of the best performances of this past year and if Rios never acted again, it’d be a one-off for the ages, perfectly encapsulated in the strange, forced, teary half-smile of Oscar that closes this remarkable movie like an inky smudge on a passionately scribbled first draft.

Robert Abele
Los Angeles Times