Sightlines · reception

How I'm No Longer Here was received

2019 · Luis Fernando Frías de la Parra · I'm No Longer Here on Sightlines

The arc

It slipped out of the 2019 festival circuit quietly, then exploded when Netflix dropped it worldwide in May 2020 — pandemic word-of-mouth, an Oscar shortlist spot, and a near-sweep at the Ariels turned it into one of the defining Mexican films of its era almost overnight.

What’s debated

The friendly fight is over its slippery, time-jumping structure — whether the fractured chronology deepens the melancholy or keeps you at arm's length from Ulises.

Its footprint

The film single-handedly put the Cholombiano subculture of Monterrey — the gravity-defying sideburns, the baggy fits, cumbia rebajada slowed to a crawl — back into the global conversation, years after cartel-era stigma had pushed it underground. That image of Ulises dancing became instantly iconic.

Where it stands

A canon climber: a Letterboxd favorite of the Netflix era and an increasingly standard answer to 'best Mexican films of the 2010s', boosted by Cuarón and del Toro publicly championing it.

Did you know? Lead Juan Daniel García Treviño was a non-professional first-time actor from Monterrey — and won the Ariel for Best Actor for the role, as the film took home ten Arieles including Best Picture; Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón even recorded a joint conversation raving about it.