Rodrigo Sorogoyen has received well-deserved recognition for El reino and As bestas, two good films, the latter extraordinary. And perhaps, out of inertia, he is receiving praise for El ser querido, which could have encountered the handicap of a story similar to that of the also overrated Valor sentimental, but that has not been the case. The developments are distinct. Sorogoyen, always with Isabel Peña as co-writer, has built this time a film based strictly on four scenes that are worth it and that sustain the intensity of a proposal that leaks on many other fronts.
Javier Bardem is, as always, superb in the role of a tyrannical director who tries to redeem himself to connect with his daughter, whom he abandoned and to whom he offers the lead role in his new film. But there is not much more to this conflict raised in an initial scene, very close in tone to the unbearable Los años nuevos, the Movistar series in which some unbearable snobs tell their relationship through the New Year's Eves they have spent together. I could not finish it.
In El ser querido, no character has substance beyond that of Bardem and Luengo and the filming of the movie is just an excuse to consume footage in a soporific way without anything happening. If we add stylistic decisions that contribute nothing to the development, we are left with a proposal with attempts at what could have been and was not. What remains in your retina is the impossible filming scene at the table with Bardem's outburst, the meeting of Luengo with the father's family, the two of father and daughter and the tedium of not having seen anything that has a true emotion.
The daughter's character required more, but Sorogoyen shoots from the watchtower of the established filmmaker who seeks the applause of critics, not from the humility of telling a story. And he knows how to do it, with nerve, with a tight script and a lot of style. To As bestas I refer.
Pensioners are turning it into the big Tuesday hit at the box office and it has enough momentum to continue raking in money. Later will come the trickle of nominations for the Goyas, with academics accustomed to voting in a block for what has received the most media attention. From Cannes, rightly, it came out empty-handed. And nothing will be able to do against the overwhelming La bola negra, which is already playing in the league of aspiring to the Oscars, beyond the category of best international film.
