[The cast isn't known in the U.S.-check the IMDb home page for this film for the full listing.]
Spanish director Emilio Martinez-Lazaro isn't as well known as his contemporary, much studied and highly regarded Pedro Almodovar. If "The Other Side of the Bed" represents his best work, I hope he and his films become more familiar to U.S. audiences soon.
Sparklingly clever and funny, this is a relationships comedy in an almost opera bouffe style with a measured dose of slapstick. Music - songs with funny lyrics (you have to follow the subtitles carefully)- and sprightly choreography more than highlight the story. Martinez-Lazaro creatively uses song and dance to bridge narrative portions, summarize a fast shifting plot-line and bring the viewer along in what otherwise would, however good the acting, be a fairly conventional and oft-told story of couples checking out their best friends in the sack.
And that story is:
Javier deeply loves the beautiful Sylvia and they have an uninhibited sex life. Paula dumps her adoring boyfriend,Pedro, for another man but she won't tell him who the guy is. He's Javier and she hounds him to tell Sylvia their relationship is over. Javier can't bring himself to do that so he continues enjoying vigorous bedroom calisthenics with both his adoring Sylvia and the increasingly irritated and losing patience Paula. Pedro sobs on Sylvia's shoulder. He's obsessed with Paula and has even hired a truly wacko P.I. (the guy wrote a book claiming J.F.K. killed himself) to tail Paula. Guess where unloading his grief on sympathetic Sylvia leads.
The women and the men both have friends also dealing with relationship issues. Everyone is likable-not a bad ass character in the whole film. Two women, Jennifer and Pilar, have small but highly humorous roles that add to the central quartet's roiling, almost out-of-control issues.
"The Other Side of the Bed" seems a bit like a Spanish Woody Allen film and "Everyone Says I Love You" springs first to mind. But this isn't a derivative take on a terrific Woody flick. Martinez-Lazaro has neither patience with nor interest in Allen's quest to uncover every known neurosis (no one in this film is remotely anhedonic) nor does he look for barely concealed powerful emotions as Almodovar does. His characters want stability as a second course to lust but they're not examining their childhoods, their relationships with mom or the impact of a turbulent world on their amorous activities. These folks want pure joy and they often find and express that wonderful quality in and with each other. Sylvia, Paula, Pedro and Javier are, I suspect, iconographic representations of what many of us fantasize about in terms of our own relationship experiences (usually fruitlessly). How can any viewer not like these young, hip, affluent libido-driven bed-hoppers?
Sundance scores here by making this flick available on DVD. Be sure to keep reading subtitles carefully as the end credits role.
The cast must have had a blast making "The Other Side of the Bed." Neither side, by the way, is suitable for kids as there's a fair bit of nudity and simulated(?) sex.
9/10.
Spanish director Emilio Martinez-Lazaro isn't as well known as his contemporary, much studied and highly regarded Pedro Almodovar. If "The Other Side of the Bed" represents his best work, I hope he and his films become more familiar to U.S. audiences soon.
Sparklingly clever and funny, this is a relationships comedy in an almost opera bouffe style with a measured dose of slapstick. Music - songs with funny lyrics (you have to follow the subtitles carefully)- and sprightly choreography more than highlight the story. Martinez-Lazaro creatively uses song and dance to bridge narrative portions, summarize a fast shifting plot-line and bring the viewer along in what otherwise would, however good the acting, be a fairly conventional and oft-told story of couples checking out their best friends in the sack.
And that story is:
Javier deeply loves the beautiful Sylvia and they have an uninhibited sex life. Paula dumps her adoring boyfriend,Pedro, for another man but she won't tell him who the guy is. He's Javier and she hounds him to tell Sylvia their relationship is over. Javier can't bring himself to do that so he continues enjoying vigorous bedroom calisthenics with both his adoring Sylvia and the increasingly irritated and losing patience Paula. Pedro sobs on Sylvia's shoulder. He's obsessed with Paula and has even hired a truly wacko P.I. (the guy wrote a book claiming J.F.K. killed himself) to tail Paula. Guess where unloading his grief on sympathetic Sylvia leads.
The women and the men both have friends also dealing with relationship issues. Everyone is likable-not a bad ass character in the whole film. Two women, Jennifer and Pilar, have small but highly humorous roles that add to the central quartet's roiling, almost out-of-control issues.
"The Other Side of the Bed" seems a bit like a Spanish Woody Allen film and "Everyone Says I Love You" springs first to mind. But this isn't a derivative take on a terrific Woody flick. Martinez-Lazaro has neither patience with nor interest in Allen's quest to uncover every known neurosis (no one in this film is remotely anhedonic) nor does he look for barely concealed powerful emotions as Almodovar does. His characters want stability as a second course to lust but they're not examining their childhoods, their relationships with mom or the impact of a turbulent world on their amorous activities. These folks want pure joy and they often find and express that wonderful quality in and with each other. Sylvia, Paula, Pedro and Javier are, I suspect, iconographic representations of what many of us fantasize about in terms of our own relationship experiences (usually fruitlessly). How can any viewer not like these young, hip, affluent libido-driven bed-hoppers?
Sundance scores here by making this flick available on DVD. Be sure to keep reading subtitles carefully as the end credits role.
The cast must have had a blast making "The Other Side of the Bed." Neither side, by the way, is suitable for kids as there's a fair bit of nudity and simulated(?) sex.
9/10.