Tedfoldol
everything you have heard about this movie is true.
ChicDragon
It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
SanEat
A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
The_late_Buddy_Ryan
Vintage coming-of-age drama from Argentina, though it's largely set in Spain. The setup is quite promising: Martin, an Argentine screenwriter who lives in Madrid and a distant, withholding dad if there ever was one, reluctantly takes charge of his 19-year-old son, Hache (pron. "Aché," the equivalent of "Junior"), after the latter unwisely mixes whiskey with a street drug called "dog" and ends up in the hospital. Martin, solitary and self-absorbed by nature, seems to be at a loss, but Martin's friend and collaborator Dante, a hedonistic gay actor, and Martin's clingy, coke-addled girlfriend Alicia (the fabulous Cecilia Roth of "All About My Mother") are delighted to have a handsome new playmate. Trouble comes (for the characters—and the viewer, IMHO) when the scene shifts to a luxurious villa in Almería, in the south (not unlike the modernist pueblo where Bardot and Michel Piccoli hole up in Godard's "Contempt"). An evening of drinking, doping and cynical philosophizing, presumably for the benefit of the directionless young Hache, has tragic consequences that seemed, to me at least, both predictable and contrived. Despite a charmingly redemptive final scene in which Hache finally comes into his own, the film never recaptured my attention after that. A couple of our Spanish Facebook friends really talked this one up; part of the problem may be that the subtitles can't keep pace with the dialogue, which, in these melodramatic final scenes, just comes off as pretentious and banal
joalogon
Aristarain strikes back again.After the beautiful "Un lugar en el mundo", he gives us this film which is nearly a theater work.He repeats with two beasts of Argentinian's cinema. Cecilia Roth (whom half the Spanish talking world has been in love with), and one of the five best actors of all times, FEDERICO LUPPI.It's impossible not to think about my own father seeing his personage, with this overwhelming love for his son and yet unable to communicate with. Maybe I've seen it over five times, and still I cry each time when Federico Luppi stands on the balcony talking about the desperation of life after the idea of loosing his son misunderstood. It's the nearest you will get to understand fatherly love if you don't yet have a baby.The plot is banal, and the filming nothing complicated, just a camera fixed to let all the attention to actors........but then, the hit. What an acting!!!!!. You hardly are going to see something similar, Luppi is a monster, a giant, he fills the screen with a strength rarely seen away.A must see in Spanish, where you can really judge their beautiful work. The pity is that it would surprise me a lot if the titles are able to reproduce all that complicated and quick talking.
kinolieber
Wonderful film that sadly was not released in the U.S. Beautifully written and acted character-driven piece about many things, among them the role of a parent in our modern civilization - and the role of the child as well; the relationships between men and women, and the friendships between straight men and gay men; the role of artistic expression in the lives of artists and in the lives of those who will never be artists. The film is also noteworthy for its portrayal of the hypocrisy of adults who impose upon their children "values" that they themselves reject in their day-to-day lives. The gay character is refreshingly unapologetic. And the female lead is heartbreakingly real, a brilliant and deeply moving performance by Cecilia Roth. If you ever get a chance to see this film, I highly recommend it.
Keith F. Hatcher
At times I felt this film might have been adapted from stage-theatre, so good are the dialogues; scintillating, the right way to speak Spanish – if you will excuse the `porteño' accent so very necessary for the film. The old `maestro' Federico Luppi is about as good as in any other film I have seen him in, I suppose; Juan Diego de Botto is better than in other films of his that I have seen; but the real standing ovation is for Eusebio Ponce who plays very delicately and intelligently the philosophical homosexual, and Cecilia Roth is outstanding as the film-director's girl-friend. Though I must say that I am beginning to get accustomed to Cecilia Roth being outstanding in everything she does.The direction is right – spot on; tight, befitting the excellent playing out of the dialogues and demanding great skill with the camera and later the person with the scissors. Adolfo Arastarain worked hard for this one: the result is a hugely satisfying piece.Once again, as erstwhile said elsewhere in IMDb, for those who like real character-driven pieces with intelligent dialogues, this film is highly recommendable. However, for those of you with a fair knowledge of Spanish, if you are not used to the Argentinian (porteño) accent you may well have problems, such that you will need the subtitles. It is worth the effort, I can assure you: just over 8 out of 10, which is pretty high on my scale.
