Are the residents of a Santiago nursing home being abused by the very people who are supposed to be looking after them? When a private investigator hires an elderly man to go undercover as a new resident to suss out any mistreatment, Chilean filmmaker Maite Alberdi is there to follow along… on the sly, of course.
Nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, 2020’s The Mole Agent is an unusual combination of clever and touching. This is a film that sneaks up on your heartstrings with exactly the panache its titular protagonist lacks; his charming but bumbling spycraft is somewhat less stealthy.
Loneliness and listlessness howl at the center of Alberdi’s portrait of this nursing home, with one potential balm lurking in plain sight: her mole agent has purpose, however small and perhaps even ultimately superfluous, but it gives his life a shape and his days a motivation that his new nursing-home friends lack. Alberdi’s eye on it all is perceptive and poignant.
US: stream on Hulu and Kanopy; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: rent on BFI Player and Curzon Home Cinema; rent/buy on Prime, Apple TV, and Dogwoof on Demand
See The Mole Agent at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
