The movie would have been even more enjoyable if it had been complete. Several key lines of dialogue went untranslated (including the punchline to a joke about architects, which pissed me off because I was hoping to hear a good architect put-down), and I think parts of the film were just plain missing. Scenes frequently skipped, and an important plot point was about to get cleared up when the film abruptly jumped to the next scene.
But that’s not writer-director Damian Szifron’s fault. He’s created a clever, engaging film with Ezequiel, an architecture student, finding out his girlfriend’s cheated on him and is planning to break up with him. He stalks her lover and forces a series of confrontations with him that escalate in violence and in absurdity. It all leads to a happy-ish ending that actually doesn’t have much to do with the bottom of the sea (I was expecting a body to end up down there or something). The two men are both terrific characters, especially the lover, who’s a dick beyond belief, but Ana, Ezequiel’s girlfriend, is not terribly well defined.
This might be moot, because I have no idea if this will ever be shown anywhere in the U.S. again, but in case it is, go see it.
*******
I happened to see another Argentinean film recently, The Son of the Bride (El hijo de la novia), also a charming, well-made movie that I recommend. Here, a middle-aged man, already in something of a mid-life crisis, has a literal heart attack that precipitates a metaphorical one. Rafa (the excellent Ricardo Darín) has all the accoutrements of a modern man: an ex-wife, a daughter he sees once a week, a much younger girlfriend, a mother with Alzheimer’s, and a hectic, demanding job. His first heart attack makes him want to shed most of them; his second, with an assist from his father and a long-lost childhood friend, makes him realize how much he cares for them.
It’s a sweet little movie, with a touching rapport between
Rafa’s parents, his father never wearying of caring for his wife, even
though she barely remembers who he is. The last ten minutes or so
are oddly slapsticky compared to the rest of the movie, where the humor
is more subtle. Juan Carlos, the long-lost friend who finds Rafa
and falls for his girlfriend, seems to be there solely for comic relief
(he’s got a Roberto Benigni thing going on); his role in the plot doesn’t
seem to gel the way it should have. But the movie is well acted (Darín
in particular is terrific) and highly enjoyable.
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