Purely Joyful Movie!

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Despite it's not living up - for most of its running time - to the "contains explicit content" warning on the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2015 website, I enjoyed 'Las Oscuras Primaveras' (English-language release title: 'The Obscure Spring'), a slow-moving Mexican film. Pina works in an office block as a tea lady (but no Mrs Overall she - actress Irene Azuela is very attractive). Working in the same block is Igor (José María Yazpik - a lived-in face but a powerful body). Both have humdrum home lives: she is a single mother living with her manipulative young son; he has a dowdy, nervous wife. They engage in a series of (disappointingly clothed) sexual encounters in the office block basement, but both baulk at the greater intimacy of a night at an hotel. The 'relationship' falters and they find different ways of compensating: Pina by throwing out her son's toys; Igor by buying a photocopier (no, really...)Azuela and Yazpik do a good job with their parts, creating believable, everyday people involved in unusual events. I like the fact that although there's much to feel sorry for in the characters - Pina's youth disappearing to the responsibilities of parenthood and Igor with his desperate-to-please but ultimately boring wife - both are also flawed. If you like kitchen sink dramas, this engrossing film is just right - and it contains a death scene of which 'Midsomer Murders' would be proud...