Highlights of the Miami Film Festival
For the 39th incarnation of the Miami Film Festival, sponsor-producer Miami-Dade College assembled more than 60,000 filmgoers for presentations of Ibero-American cinema. Over the years, 75 countries have been honored by the Festival for stellar work.
Javier Bardem, nominated as Academy Awards Best Actor for his portrayal of Desi Arnaz in Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos, has an even more impressive role in The Good Boss (El Buen Patron/Spain). As the titular head of a scale manufacturer, his decency and fairness are put to the darkly comedic test, as things go haywire just before an inspection by judges that might lead to an industry award.
Bardem, as boss Blanco, lets his benevolent composure slide as a incompetent manager who is let go crusades against the factory just outside the gates every day, setting up camp and screaming epithets. Blanco is not blameless, as an affair with a precocious daughter of an associate (a wily, manipulative Almudena Amor) also threatens to upend the formerly well-oiled workings of Blanco’s world.
Director-screenwriter Fernando León de Aranoa exhibits total command and lacerating wit, and he deservedly received a sweep of awards at the Goyas in Spain, as well as many other prizes on the Iberian peninsula. The entire cast, spearheaded by Bardem, is flawless and the fact that this Spanish gem was not nominated by the Oscars for Best International Film shows you, like The Good Boss itself, that justice is often uncomfortably ephemeral.
From unbalanced scale factory workers, we move to unhealthy dentists in Carlos Cuaron’s, er, biting examination of four miscreant doctors at a Mayan Riviera dental convention, Amalgam (Amalgama/Mexico). Cuaron, writing with Luis Usabiaga, gives each player richly complex problems. Stephanie Cayo as Dr. Elena Duran, has to fend off the advances of her three compatriots at a private island residence, all while on the phone secretly managing an affair with her married boss.
Amalgam cleverly explodes the veneer of machismo of its lead characters, as facades crumble to reveal one is a mama’s boy, one is in the closet and one can’t say no to a wife who spends money with total abandon. Revelations explode in the faces of all the characters and the forgiveness exhibited is believably touching, a credit to an excellent cast. But again, the Academy is, if you will pardon the expression, when it comes to international nominees, missing the damned boat.
