THE FILM CRITIC (El Crítico)
Music Box Films
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: B
Director: Hernán Guerschuny
Cast: Hernán Guerschuny
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 4/27/15
Opens: May 15, 2015
I learned a lot about film critics from viewing this movie. I conclude that I would never consider such a vocation, not even part time. Film critics are a burned-out lot, or at least Hernán Guerschuny has written and directed characters that show evidence of this phenomenon. They hate movies, but who can argue with that considering that a typical critic may see 100, 150, 200 or more each year, most of which are without originality, full of clichés, with actors who phone in their performances and who play second fiddle to car crashes, helicopter gunships, and crashing music? Victor Tellez (Rafael Spregeburd), the title character in this one—which, by the way, does have some originality and who competent actors are directed with a steady, quick pace by Guerschuny in his freshman feature—is burned out with a particular aversion to romantic comedies given their über clichés. He notes in conversations to his colleagues with whom he meets post-performance in their favorite café, that the genre offers little more than pairs of characters who are at first attracted, later breaking up after an argument, then reconciling with fervent kisses in the rain amid fireworks and music loud enough to wake the dead. Years after he has dismissed such movies as products of overwrought, if hackneyed, creators, he finds that his own life has become a romantic dramedy. As they say, life follows art just as art follows life.
No sooner has he argued with his sixteen-year-old niece how what the public wants is different from the more ethereal goals of professional critics then he is confronted by the pretty Sofia (Dolores Fonzi) with whom he finds himself in competition for the same apartment, which the realtor happily arranges to make the place more desirable. Sofia, who lives in Madrid and is in Buenos Aires for the funeral of her father, attracts Victor’s attention (cliché one), their struggle over the flat leading to her walking away from him (cliché two), and their subsequent meetings resulting in the beginnings of a relationship (cliché three). As they get to know each other, he notes she seems compulsively active and bubbly, a lively contrast to his own seen-it-all, hangdog personality. Meanwhile, as he continues to see movies on assignment from his newspaper (circulation 100,000), his editor gets uptight that the last time he gave five stars (the paper calls them “seats”) to a movie was twenty years ago. Victor is threatened with a transfer to the horoscope division if he continues to write harsh commentary, turning off potential advertisers. When Victor gives a four-seat review to the next romantic comedy, it is only because in his own life, he realizes that the plot developments on the screen are no different from new activities on his part.
“The Film Critic” is primarily an imaginative look at a budding romance between two quite different people, but in addition the story is filled with amusing side characters such as Victor’s fellow critics who often seem comatose at the advance screenings and especially Leandro Arce (Ignacio Rogers), who would like to kill Victor as his films have been regularly panned by Victor, and whose columns have relegated at least one movie editor to a menial job. Ultimately this tale pays homage to critics and to movies in general despite the dispiriting army of mediocrity on the screens, and would be appreciated especially by viewers who had seen Federico’s Veiroj’s 2010 “A Useful Life,” in which an employee with 25 years’ service must adjust after his theater is shut down.
Comedies from Argentina like this one have proven themselves able to travel well across continents, as witness the huge critical success of Damián Szifrón’s “Wild Tales,” which in my book is the best movie of 2014.
Unrated. 98 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – B
Acting – B+
Technical – B
Overall = B
