Highly Overrated But Still Good

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

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

Why the title? Because they said Whisky when we'd say cheese for a photograph smile. I wonder if that's true or just for the movie? The factory owner Jacobo needs a wife and it seems to me this is because he actually has one and his brother will expect to see her, but we only hear of her once - when Marta is at Jacobo's home and "his wife" phones asking for him. Marta puts down the phone and that's it for the wife - enough to explain Jacobo's need for Marta's co-operation.Spoilers follow It's not too difficult to guess how the story ensues and it isn't a story for startling surprises. It's sort of every day and yet not, and poignant. Marta makes a mistake that may just indicate to the brother that she isn't Jacobo's wife - one time Jacobo said they honeymooned in Brazil, but later Marta says if she could afford it she'd have a holiday in Brazil. Unlike cold, emotionless Jacobo, the brother is a nice guy who clearly loves his chilly brother and comes to like Marta too. I felt this significant once we'd reached the ending.As for the ending, don't read on unless you want to know it but I just loved it. Every day, several times in the movie, Marta waits for Jacobo to open the factory. After the brother has gone home and Jacobo has paid Marta (rather a lot of money that his brother gave him out of guilt as well as friendship), Marta doesn't thank Jacobo by continuing in her job. She doesn't turn up. Are we surprised? Jacobo used her with cold ruthlessness whilst she was I would guess fond of him. But we reckon we know where's she's gone.......... spending the money in Brazil. Good for Marta! You can be used just once too often and then you rebel, that's the moral of the story.Splendid movie, very pleased I watched it.

I saw this film at the 2005 Palm Springs International Film Festival. This movie is low in budget but big in charm. Jacabo is a dour, middle aged bachelor who lived with his mother. He runs a small run down sock factory in Montevideo with archaic outdated machinery that employs only three people. One, is his assistant Marta. His much more successful brother Herman is also in the sock business in but in Brazil and is married with a family and a seasoned traveler who is up on the latest in technology and outgoing and gregarious and everything Jacabo is not or chose not to be. The mother has died and Herman is coming to Montevideo. To help polish his image Jacabo has enlisted Marta to pose as his wife during Herman's stay. They even have a studio portrait photograph taken of themselves as a happily married couple to display on the mantle. Here is where the film's title Whiskey originates as in Uruguay they say "whiskey" instead of "cheese" when posing for a photograph to muster up a smile. This is an unassuming and unpretentious film as it deals with the mundane, everyday existence of the lives of Jacabo who is trapped in his life and Marta who wishes for something more. This is a slow moving film as it examines the dullness of routine and the ordinary taken to extreme. It has it's moments and there is more to it really than there seems but the general film goer is going to find this too slow and dull with not enough to say "whiskey" about and the roles call for no outstanding acting performances to help carry it. I would give it a 6.0 of a possible 10

Droll, understated comedy that also works as an allegorical account of the general state of affairs in Uruguay these days. Jacobo Köller (Andres Pazos) runs a small, down at the heels sock factory in Montevideo. He's an avoidant, depressive, aging bachelor who had taken care of his ailing mother for years until her recent death.Now it is time for her Matzeivah (a ceremony at which a tombstone is placed on her grave), and Jacobo is obliged to invite his younger brother Herman (Jorge Bolani), who moved north years earlier to Brazil, where he has a wife and family and runs a highly successful sock factory.For reasons never made clear, Jacobo feels he must pretend to be recently married. He imposes on the long suffering Marta (Mirella Pascual), who is his forewoman at the sock factory, to act the role of his spouse.Set against the mind-numbing routines of Jacobo and Marta's dull lives, Herman arrives like a Spring breeze. He's energetic, upbeat, full of corny jokes, even vaguely seductive toward Marta. At his insistence, the trio venture on hour east for a couple of days to the seaside resort of Piriapolis, on the so-called Uruguayan Riviera.Like the run down neighborhood, household and factory inhabited by Jacobo, Piriapolis has also seen better days. The threesome represent about half the audience at a pathetic nightclub where the lead singer is a 12 year old. The only other guests at the hotel seem to be a hick couple of honeymooners from the sticks.Near the end of his visit, Herman gives Jacobo an envelope of cash, guilt money to make up for never having helped care for their mother himself. He urges Jacobo to replace his out of date sock making machines. Jacobo instead tries to blow it all in the casino but fails: in fact, he wins big! Not too many years ago Uruguay was a thriving, economically successful nation, but, not unlike Jacobo and his shabby factory, messy apartment and old car that won't start, it's a place that has fallen on hard times, while its larger neighbors – Argentina to the west and Brazil to the north (represented by Herman), have, relatively speaking, become vibrant economic giants. The film does portray this larger surround in which the characters work out their individual destinies."Whisky," by the way, is the word that the photographers ask the somber Jacobo and Marta to say to evoke grins for their "wedding" picture, like our proverbial "cheese." "Whisky" is one of 10 recent films from developing nations touring in the "Global Lens 2005" series. (In Spanish) My rating: 7/10 (B). (Seen on 04/02/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.

I couldn't disagree more with the last comment. Probably the best movie to come out of Uruguay in a long time. This is a beautiful subtle movie but definitely not for those who need to be told when to laugh or when to feel. Full of humor, full of sadness, and really smart. A great step towards maturity taken by the directors of "25 watts". I cant wait to see where they go with their third movie. Anyone has any idea? Again, if you need an applause sign to tell you what's good, you wont know what to do with this movie. Give subtlety a try.Keep it simple.