Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, René Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.
No is a genuinely distinctive political drama that makes bold formal choices—shot on period-accurate U-matic video to mimic the look of 1980s Chilean television, which creates an immersive, almost documentary texture. Gael García Bernal delivers a nuanced, understated performance as Saavedra, avoiding easy heroics. The film's novelty is high: it examines how advertising and jingle-driven optimism defeated a dictatorship, a deeply counterintuitive and singular premise executed with dry wit. The plot is solid but occasionally episodic, and the ending, while historically satisfying, is deliberately muted and ambiguous—Saavedra's emotional disengagement makes the victory feel hollow rather than triumphant, which is thematically intentional but not dramatically cathartic.