She burned me with a cigarette.
...
- Raquel? Are you smoking again?
When your son chucks loudly during family dinner, it can be annoying. Especially if at the same time he is a withdrawn teenager, and even brings stray dogs and cats to the apartment, without caring about their growing number from day to day. Six or seven dogs. The head of the family Miguel does not know the exact number and is confused in names.
Animals, behaving more or less calmly, somehow opposed beating against the walls of the apartment Miguel, his wife Alicia and son Louis. They are tight in this cage not changing from day to day phrases and habits, constant irritations against each other.
Miguel is most concerned about how to put his wife Alicia in her place, Alicia is extremely concerned about Miguel’s cruel attitude to himself, his son and dogs, Louis is silent. Although to get a complete idea of what is happening, this description should be multiplied by the extreme isolation of each character, giving rise to the main motive of the picture - absurdity. The desire to separate from the family in every possible way, at the same time without leaving it, drives each of them.
An attempt to hide indifference, like a mosquito net, from loved ones, suddenly open up to someone else, leads to those sadly funny consequences that can shock the viewer until the very end of the film. Especially when Miguel and Alicia start looking for happiness on the side.
It is interesting that absurdity manifests itself only where relationships should develop naturally. Here's Miguel's elderly parents -- her mother is always silent, her father says phrases for her and occasionally tries to kill himself and his wife. But Raquel, radical in the methods of upbringing, sees only a “stranger” in her little daughter.
The stunning script of the film leads the viewer to a question that is relevant for everyone: why are the characters of the film so courteous with strangers and so intolerant of loved ones?
Symbolic ending: The dinner is interrupted by a call. Miguel forbids opening the door: it's time to sort out his house.
8 out of 10
Original