Busy parents send Austea to visit her grandparents in the village. The company is her friend Martinez. Upon arrival, he finds out that the old people with the weirdo: collect figurines of frogs, rejoice in the rain, talk about the treasure, and then completely disappear during a storm. Austea and Martinez decide to find the treasure.
A great example of how to make a good movie for three cents. All you have to do is find a tractor, an old wrecked boat and a cabin in the woods. For entourage - overcast autumn forest and misty lake at dawn. Simple, but with taste.
The story rests on four children: the wayward and loving to command Austeia, the led but secretive Martinez, as well as the honest and responsible Augustas and his little sister Rita who later joined them. Young actors play surprisingly vividly, except for the girl who played the role of Rita: she clearly did not understand that she needed to play something, and just hung out in the frame, sluggishly executing the director's commands.
But the theme of the treasure is rather unclear. What treasure? Why is he cursed? What about frogs? Just guesses. However, the search for treasure is rather a scenery for the play, against the background of which children talk about their hardships and experiences. There are many conversations for life, such children's gatherings in different locations. Everyone has their own pain, but everything revolves around the problems of children and parents, partly caused by the economic situation. Austea's parents are torn between training courses that offer hope for higher-paying jobs and raising a daughter. Martinez's mother is forced to work in the US to earn money. And the parents of Augustus and Rita, being in poverty, degraded morally. True, in the case of Martinez’s mother, there is one nuance, but the information that she went abroad without finding a decent income at home does not surprise anyone: this is commonplace.
The film is amazingly honest about friendship and mutual help. Without idealization and pathos, with resentments, disputes and quarrels, but constant reconciliation, support and joint overcoming of obstacles. Kind of a children's team building manual.
Perhaps, the film is empty and tedious, if you wait for a quest to find a treasure or, in principle, an eventful plot, but overall good.