Director: Gary Alazraki
Genre: Comedy (Mexico)
Starring: Gonzalo Vega, Karla Souza, Luis Gerardo Mendez, Juan Pablo Gil
Distributed by: Warner Bros. (Alazraki Films Studio)
Release Date: March 28, 2013
My Rating: 9/10
Newcomer young director Gary Alazraki directs his first full feature-length film that broke box office records throughout Mexico. German Noble (Vega) is a wealthy widower whose three adult children-Javi (Mendez), Barbara 'Barbi' (Souza), and Carlos 'Cha' (Gil)-have depended on him their entire lives. Javi, the eldest, occasionally assists his father at his company but spends most of his time partying and traveling with his friends and creating inane and far-fetched business ideas like 'VIP Gas stations' that deliver service to your car at your house. Barbara is about to marry a much-older spanish man named Pedro who has had numerous financial problems and hopes to benefit from Barbara's wealth. Cha, the youngest, has just been expelled from his university for bribing/sleeping with one of his professors and for using drugs. To top it off, all three of German's children have been spending extravagantly, as evidenced on their credit card statements. German thus suffers a mild heart attack as a result.
In order to teach them a valuable life lesson about hard work, German decides to forge a plan: One day, he stages a police appearance at their house, and tells his kids that their house is under foreclosure and that his company is being investigated for fraud and hence the government is taking all of their possessions. As Barbara angrily exclaims: "Can somebody explain to me why they're taking all our stuff as if we were in Venezuela or something?" He cancels their credit cards and takes their cell phones from them. As a result of their eviction, the 4 Nobles are forced to move into a ramschackle house on the opposite end of Mexico City where an old member of the family supposedly used to live. German thus tells his three children that in order to make ends meet, they will be forced to do something they have never done before: get a job. Cha thus begins working as a bank teller, Javi as a city bus driver, and Barbara as a waitress along with her former nanny's nephew Lucho.
Over several weeks, the 4 family members begin to grow significantly closer, learn more about each other and learn to survive in less-than-ideal conditions.
The film is a very idiosyncratic and genuine portrayal of contemporary Mexican society, both upper-class and working class, and is filled with numerous exaggerated and cartoonish yet eerily accurate stereotypes. For instance, that of the 'hipster' embodied by Cha, who wears winter hats, huge frame-rimmed glasses, smokes weed and frequently attends silent retreats, or Barbi as the princess who complains non-stop about petty issues and inserts random English words and expressions into her sentences like 'huge' and 'gross' in what appears to be an attempt to sound like an American valley girl. Or Javi, the arrogant aspiring entrepreneur who is surrounded by a posse of puerile friends just like himself.
Although cliche at various instances and ripe with raunchy and eye-rolling humor, the film does present mild doses of drama and down-to-earth moments. The three lead actors deliver stunning, laugh-out-loud performances as a trio of spoiled rich kids struggling to make something of themselves by reaping the rewards of their simple jobs. Director and writer Alazraki has created an amazing riches-to-rags story that conveys messages about family relationships, work ethics, and money in a city with incredibly large gaps between rich and poor.
