"Do You Speak American?"

CASA DE MI PADRE (2012)

This has got to be one of the strangest movies I'm ever going to review. Not because of the movie itself--Casa de mi Padre is a relatively straightforward telenovela parody--but rather because my ultimate feelings about the movie were hard to digest. The premise runs something like this: Armando Alvarez (Will Ferrell) is a cowardly ranchero who must toughen up in order to restore the dignity of his family that has been besmirched by his brother Raul's (Diego Luna) drug business. It also just so happens that Raul is getting married to the beautiful Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez), who is also the niece of the Mexico's rival drug lord, the merciless Onza (Gael Garcia Bernal). While there are a good couple gags, Casa de mi Padre is relatively straight-faced and falls back on cheap sets and unrealistic props to hold up the majority of its humor. We get poorly drawn sets, cheap driving backgrounds, and a stuffed, fake mountain lion.

In short, I didn't find myself laughing out loud very often, but here's the thing--I thoroughly enjoyed the story. While it might not have held up so well as a comedy, in the end, it was just a damn fun movie. It was as though, halfway through, the writers forgot they were writing a comedy and instead decided to have as much fun as they could in the telenovela genre. The action sequences were great, the dramatic, nefarious villains were great, heck, I even enjoyed the music. As for the actors, the main draw of the film for me was not Will Ferrell (even though my affection for him grows a little bit with every new comedy, I still have a snakeskin of unresolved bad movie issues to shrug off), but rather his two supporting players--Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal. I've been looking forward to a reunion of their chemistry since Y Tu Mama Tambien, and they certainly did not disappoint. Both brought hilarious performances to the table, especially the mighty Onza who stole the screen whenever he was in it. My only complaint was that there simply wasn't enough of them--though the one scene they share in a bar is excellent.

I will take the preemptive measure of saying one thing: I have the vague suspicion that this movie will get quite a bit of slack for its portrayal of Mexico. To which I have only one thing to say: it's called Casa de mi Padre and it stars the very America Will Ferrell as "Armando Alvarez". If you can't find anything amusing about that sentence, you might be offended. However, if you enjoyed the likes of Planet Terror (2007) and can stomach a little satire, I recommend checking this one out.

A Lesson In (B)romance.

Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (2001)

It's a story you've heard before: two teenage boys with raging hormones persistently try their luck with a woman far out of their league. It's been done before, it will be done again. What will never be repeated, however, is the brilliant subtlety that this movie really rides on. I could count on my fingers the amount of times narration in movies has been done right, and this one would certainly hit high up on that list. The real meat of this movie is in the depth of its characters and the richness Mexico, which may as well be a character in itself.  Diego Luna gives a solid performance as the rich and spoiled Tenoch, while Gael Garcia Bernal matches his performance with his less fortunate best friend, Julio. The dynamic between these boys is so rich and believable that it came as no surprise to me when I found out that the two actors actually had been childhood best friends. But what is really brilliant here is how the politics of Mexico play out between these two boys. While they initially never address the differences in their social class, we do know (via the narrator) that Julio "lighted matched to mask the smell when he used the bathroom as Tenoch's house", while Tenoch "used his foot to lift up the toilet seat at Julio's house." It's a small detail which, in any other movie, might seem like too much information, but here clearly adds a tense layer of economic discrepancy between the two best friends. 

The object of their teenage desires is Luisa Cortes, played by the talented Maribel Verdú. While Luisa is an interesting character in her own right and a good motivating force, it's clear that the movie really belongs to the two boys and their intense friendship. I would call it a bromance, but anyone who has seen the movie will know that even that is being polite. Y Tu Mamá También is more than just a good movie, it's a lesson in the art of subtle screenwriting, proper narration, and natural, genuine character development.