38/42
Starring Viime vunna Marienbadissa (1961)
Narrative
Julian, 50, divorced and strapped for cash, uses an app to share a car and travel around Madrid. Falling in love with Lorena, a regular passenger, his troubles begin when two strangers join them on the road. Filmed at the Marqués de Riscal Hotel. Mr. Electric Orchestra of Light Blue Sky.
Alex de la Iglesia creates a thriller/comedy in his own style
Alex de la Iglesia’s black comedy – shot mostly on a Castilian motorway and at the Marqués de Riscal Hotel – is a wildly fast-paced, skillfully acted and delightfully funny road movie. Julian (Alberto San Juan), 50, divorced and strapped for cash, uses “BlaBlaCar,” a car-sharing app, to travel around Madrid. He falls in love with Lorena (Blanca Suárez), a regular passenger, and now wants to use the next trip to confess his feelings to her. However, he makes a mistake in choosing the other residents, the irritating Rodrigo (Ernesto Alterio) and the picky Sergio (Rubén Cortada). So his problems begin when two strangers join them on the journey.
A disturbing road movie combined with a romantic comedy, it is a film that is extremely enjoyable and colorful
Black comedy, funny situations and rare roles by the unconventional director Álex De La Iglesia, who also wrote the scripts with his usual screenwriter Jorge Guerricaechevarría. Álex de la Iglesia presents us with a mix of strange characters, fast-paced dialogues and absurd situations in a luxury car. De la Iglesia returns to the black comedy territory of his previous works, focusing on the relationship between four unconventional roles. It can be very funny and very moving at the same time, so it was a perfect combination for me. It’s a strange and funny film, in which Álex once again establishes his exceptionally breathtaking and visually striking style.
A crazy road movie with a nice and attractive cast
Pleasant interpretations by Alberto San Juan as a divorced 50-year-old with financial problems who resorts to using an app to share a car, Blanca Suárez as his undercover love interest, Rubén Cortada as a handsome, independent young man and a special mention for Ernesto Alterio, who steals the show as a deranged, troublesome passenger who will trigger a dramatic change in the course of events in his life. This darkly humorous film was skillfully directed by Álex de la Iglesia, produced in his new brand of horror films he calls “The Fear Collection” – along with his wife Carolina Bang, in real life Alberto San Juan’s character bears a certain resemblance to Álex, being a divorced man, as De La Iglesia has stated, who recently married a woman twenty years his junior, Carolina Bang herself; similar to Blanca Suárez and Alberto San Juan, who are indeed 20 years apart. As is often the case in Álex de la Iglesia’s filmography, this new entry oscillates between humor, thriller and suspense, in this case in the guise of a funny road movie mixed with romantic comedy, featuring a cast of excellent actors who have previously worked with the Basque director, such as Ernesto Alterio and Blanca Suárez in “The Bar.” Alex De La Iglesia is a cool director who has many successes under his belt, such as: “Accion Mutante”, “Dying of Laughter” or “Muertos De Risa”, “The Child’s Room”, “The Oxford Murders”, “Ballad” Sad about the Trumpet ̈, ̈Loss of Durango ̈ , among others. This is undoubtedly an exciting and enjoyable film that will appeal to lovers of black humor and fans of Alex De Iglesia, the Spanish king of black comedy. Rating : 6/10.
Acceptable and bearable
Worth watching.
