Nuestros Amantes (April, 24)

It was 9 pm, time for the movie of the day.  After  settling comfortably on the sofa, with my legs  resting on the wheels' chair, a bag of pepper chips on my lap, I realized the jumble I've made. First, I had a hot chili snack and no soda. Second, the external HD with all my movies was on the table in the kitchen. Ok, it is a small flat, but for nothing in the world, not even a much needed soda, I would get up at that exact moment. As I didn't envision myself looking for a film in the lousy cable TV,  my solely alternative was Netflix.

I put on the first movie on the streaming service, Our Lovers (Nuestros Amantes). The sinopsis was promising: a couple meet at a coffee shop-library... There was no need to read any more. Coffee shops in bookstores are one of my favorite places in the world (and so are cinemas and rock'n roll gigs and my home). Two people start a friendship and fall in love without knowing anything about each other. Well, or something like that. 

The plot here is great, actually; the execution was the problem. With a screenplay excessively rational, it was difficult to fall in love with this love story. Probably because the flick was suported by the City of Aragón, Spain, there's too many touristy scenes - the place is stunning, for sure, but if someone as not picky as myself was aware of the excessive scenery takes, you can be assured that it was really too much. By the way, excessive is a good word to describe this movie, specially regarding all the talk about love in what intends to be insightful, but remains just in the surface of intellectual exaggeration. It is a thesis, not a movie.

Everything here also intends to be so cute, but it is a shallow sort of cuteness. The characters are messy, and it is wonderful, however they're so rational, intellectual, even while talking about their most painful feelings. This fault is due to the screen writers  (sorry, folks), I think. Too much theory, not enough life. A script must breath life to make sense. Otherwise, it happens what I saw on the screen on this day: a great potential wasted by so many good intentions and points of view to be stated (and proved).

It is not all bad though. The plot twist was surprising. The main couple is nice, we root for them. They're honest in their feelings, even if it is delivered in an overly rational wording. The coffee in the bookstore is beautiful, and the cognac scene is fun. The rest was a bit over the top, as I've said. A 91 min flick that took the length of an epic war movie. Or maybe I was too sleepy for my own good. OK, no, there's no such a thing. Other movies had already took me out of my numbness by being truly cute and endearing. The fault here is not in my star, I must say :)

Nuestros Amantes. Directed and written by Miguel Àngel
Lamata. Cast: Eduardo Noriega (who looks so much as
a friend of mine), Michelle Jennes (who looks so much
as a friend of mine also called Michelle - seriously, a movie
full of familiar faces), Fele Martínez. Spain, Dolby Digital,
Color, 88 min. (Netflix).

PS: My masterpiece of a friend, Pan, came to see me after work, as she has been doing since I fell from the stairs, to see if I was all right. She had to study Spanish for her class, and at the end we said goodbye in a goofy Spanish accent. I had no idea I would see a Spanish movie, and the result was that I wouldn't stop laughing at some words. That also shows how much the movie wasn't able to catch me for real.