THU 18 AUG
Coming Soon to
Matakana Cinemas
120 mins |
Rated
M (Violence, offensive language, sex scenes & nudity)
Directed by Fernando León de Aranoa
Starring Manolo Solo, Fernando Albizu, Almudena Amor, Sonia Almarcha, Óscar de la Fuente, Javier Bardem
Benevolent patriarch Julio Blanco, CEO of a family company manufacturing precision industrial scales, is determined to win a prestigious business award. In a few days’ time, the national committee deciding the award outcome will come to inspect the premises. Everything must be perfect – Julio, risking his own sanity, will ensure that it is, no matter who he must seduce and destroy.
“‘Don’t treat me like a boss,’ Blanco keeps telling people with a thin gray smile. You shudder to think how fast it would vanish if you did anything but. We first encounter him giving a smarmy pep talk to the employees at his company… All smiles and handshakes and repeated mentions of community, it’s a performance for the benefit of a local journalist, visiting to big-up the factory in a commissioned puff piece…
Once the visitors are gone, however… a little harsh housekeeping. Among various downsizing measures, longtime employee Jose is summarily dismissed, and doesn’t take it well… Within factory walls, meanwhile, everything is far from hunky-dory. Blanco’s right-hand man, Miralles, is distracted by marital woes and flailing professionally – a weakness his boss isn’t above exploiting for the good of the company… Blanco’s own marriage to world-weary fashion boutique owner Adela hasn’t been sacred for years… With each chaotic plot turn of [this] anti-corporate comedy, it becomes clearer that Blanco is the blandest possible incarnation of pure evil: a man with nary a principle, much less a personality, to his name.” — Guy Lodge, Variety
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Benevolent patriarch Julio Blanco, CEO of a family company manufacturing precision industrial scales, is determined to win a prestigious business award. In a few days’ time, the national committee deciding the award outcome will come to inspect the premises. Everything must be perfect – Julio, risking his own sanity, will ensure that it is, no matter who he must seduce and destroy.
“‘Don’t treat me like a boss,’ Blanco keeps telling people with a thin gray smile. You shudder to think how fast it would vanish if you did anything but. We first encounter him giving a smarmy pep talk to the employees at his company… All smiles and handshakes and repeated mentions of community, it’s a performance for the benefit of a local journalist, visiting to big-up the factory in a commissioned puff piece…
Once the visitors are gone, however… a little harsh housekeeping. Among various downsizing measures, longtime employee Jose is summarily dismissed, and doesn’t take it well… Within factory walls, meanwhile, everything is far from hunky-dory. Blanco’s right-hand man, Miralles, is distracted by marital woes and flailing professionally – a weakness his boss isn’t above exploiting for the good of the company… Blanco’s own marriage to world-weary fashion boutique owner Adela hasn’t been sacred for years… With each chaotic plot turn of [this] anti-corporate comedy, it becomes clearer that Blanco is the blandest possible incarnation of pure evil: a man with nary a principle, much less a personality, to his name.” — Guy Lodge, Variety