Writer-directors Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia have produced an interesting portrait of a self-centred, self-absorbed male, not unlike the character in Cowboy who dreams of Hollywood success. Sergio’s (Diego Peretti) dreams are less ambitious: he wants to move out of porn and into ‘straight’ acting. So far he’s never gone beyond being an extra and although he hustles effectively his volatile temperament is a problem. As is his male ego: in between his hustling for roles he cruises for women, particularly ones much younger than he.
Unsurprisingly there is undoubtedly a Latino bent to the character but the film doesn’t offer him sympathy. He is a man not acting his age and whilst there are times when age should be ignored, so as not to become a burden upon life by restricting opportunity, imagining a fiftysomething can continue to act as if 20 years younger is likely to end badly. American film distributor Jane (Julianne Nicholson, also seen in Monos) is on the rebound from a failing marriage and fancies some ‘Latin lust’ and although she gets some she also is on the receiving end of events everyone would rather avoid. The latter refers to a narrative turn in the last third of the film which isn’t entirely convincing although Sergio’s attempts to seduce the girlfriend of a missing young man are truly excruciating.
The title refers to an album Sergio made trading on the similarity of his looks to Serge Gainsbourg; a poster for the album is prominent in his flat and at first seems to be referring to the film we are watching. Such disorientation would have been interesting if it had been developed because it is hard to make an engaging film where the protagonist is an arsehole. To an extent, and Peretti’s performance is remorseless in its misoygny, it succeeds in being watchable but, unlike Cowboy, I didn’t feel there was much point in seeing an idiot behaving like an idiot.
The backdrop of the film is the World Cup of 2014 when Argentina lost to Germany in the final; the losers element reflects Sergio’s trajectory balefully anchored by the occasional omnipotent narrator (whose tone sounds like that of the one in Y tu mama tambien). Thus there is an attempt to give the film a wider social resonance: is fanatic fandom symptomatic of people who have lost, if not their moral compass, their sense of proportion about what is important? Given the current crisis about Coronavirus, which in the UK seemed only to be taken seriously by the government after league football was postponed, they may have a point.
The Case for Global Film 