Cry for Me, Argentina: My Life as a Failed Child Star

Argentine actor and writer Yajia (This Fool) catalogs her early life and bumpy entertainment career in this sardonic and unfocused debut. Born in Buenos Aires in 1983, Yajia bounced between Argentina and the United States during her childhood, beginning when her family fled Argentina’s financial crisis in 1989. Yajia found solace in performing—first in sketches at the Argentine Jewish community center her parents made her attend, then, after some lessons, singing at festivals and in clubs across Argentina. In 1996, Yajia was recruited to star in an Argentine rip-off of The Mickey Mouse Club, but had to turn the gig down because her parents moved her once again to the United States, landing in Irvine, Calif., to seek work. There, a teenage Yajia failed to gain traction as an actor, fell in with a rough crowd, and became addicted to Vicodin, before finding her way back to the arts as an adult. Raw and raunchy (“I don’t have a flower, I have a pussy,” Yajia tells a doctor who tries to euphemize her anatomy), Yajia’s account is appealingly unfiltered, but she too often mistakes shock for humor, and there’s not much narrative momentum to speak of. It’s a mixed bag. (July)