The greatest movie ever!

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

An aging film director returns quickly from Madrid to Buenos Aires when he learns of his nineteen-year old son's drug overdose. When summoned to the boy's bedside, Martin believes his son has tried to commit suicide, although the facts are unclear. What is apparent, however, is that the director (Frederico Luppi), known only as Martin, has distanced himself from his family, hiding his emotions to those who looked to him for support: his son, his mistress Alicia (Cecilia Roth), and his gay actor friend Dante (Eusebio Poncela). Potentially melodramatic, Argentinean director Adolfo Aristarain's (A Place in the World) Martin (Hache), handles the material with skill and intelligence and, while the dialogue often sounds like tedious psychodrama, impeccable performances by Luppi and Roth make Martin extremely watchable.Juan Diego Botto is Martin's son, known as Hache (Junior) or Jay in the English subtitles. Though quite intelligent, Jay does not work or go to school and his only interest seems to be playing the guitar. Feeling unwanted by both parents, rejected by his girlfriend, and thinking that he has let his father down by underachieving, he resorts to a potentially lethal combination of drugs and booze that almost end his young life. Martin is persuaded by his ex-wife to take Jay back to Madrid though he is leery of having to once again assume the responsibilities of fatherhood.Taking on a new project, he soon leaves for the south of Spain to find film locations, leaving Jay with Dante and his girlfriend Alicia, both heavy drug users. Soon, Dante and Alicia meet Martin at a seaside resort, hoping for a new sense of intimacy. It is soon clear that not much has changed. Martin refuses to give of himself, distancing the people around him with outbursts of anger and cynicism and the result leads to tragedy. The conclusion, however, is a bittersweet reminder that transformation can come instantly once difficult choices are faced.

This movie has the quality that not even Hollywood films got its based on the truth that most people will not even want to see on your regular day drug abuse, depression, selfish parents, friendship, love ,lust and people like you and me. Martin or Jay as he is called is a teenager from Buenos Aires, Argentina that overdosed himself with certain drugs for dogs then his father who lives in Spain comes worried to see him takes his son back to Spain (against his own will). the problem with Martin, H or Jay how he is called its that they don't get along at all except for Dante whom he is Martin's father best friend (best actor Eusebio Poncela). Dante a homosexual who lives in a hotel talks to Martin about every subject that not all friends will talk to one about(homosexuality, friendship, drugs, love, living up to be yourself). Then there's Cecilia Roth who plays the role of ALICIA the mistress of Martin Sr a classy performance on her part. I give this a 10 out of 10 right up there with NUEVE REYNAS.

That film ha a really horrible camera work! I saw other films with lots of dialog but none of these films had a camera work which was that bad. Like in a bad south American soap opera there wasn't much going on with the camera. The only nice picture in the film is when they move to the house on the beach. But since the house was looking very nice, even a tourist would have been able to get a nice movie of this house with his cheap camera. So that rather should be a radio play. But not even that - the characters are so stereotype that this film is not half so wise like it pretends to be. Also acting and cut are bad - especially the scene where the gay finds the women drowned in the pool. I thought "what the hell was that"? The actor doing just something and/or the cut was so bad in this scene that you have the feeling that something went completely wrong there if you see that.

At times I felt this film might have been adapted from stage-theatre, so good are the dialogues; scintillating, the right way to speak Spanish – if you will excuse the `porteño' accent so very necessary for the film. The old `maestro' Federico Luppi is about as good as in any other film I have seen him in, I suppose; Juan Diego de Botto is better than in other films of his that I have seen; but the real standing ovation is for Eusebio Ponce who plays very delicately and intelligently the philosophical homosexual, and Cecilia Roth is outstanding as the film-director's girl-friend. Though I must say that I am beginning to get accustomed to Cecilia Roth being outstanding in everything she does.The direction is right – spot on; tight, befitting the excellent playing out of the dialogues and demanding great skill with the camera and later the person with the scissors. Adolfo Arastarain worked hard for this one: the result is a hugely satisfying piece.Once again, as erstwhile said elsewhere in IMDb, for those who like real character-driven pieces with intelligent dialogues, this film is highly recommendable. However, for those of you with a fair knowledge of Spanish, if you are not used to the Argentinian (porteño) accent you may well have problems, such that you will need the subtitles. It is worth the effort, I can assure you: just over 8 out of 10, which is pretty high on my scale.