- 1991movierewind
Episode #25: Sólo con tu pareja (Love in the Time of Hysteria)
Listen to Episode 25 of the Podcast here while you enjoy the show notes.
SUMMARY - Sólo con tu pareja tells the story of Tomás Tomás, a lothario that’s sleeping with his boss as well as nearly every woman he comes across. After a failed attempt to juggle two sexual conquests in the same night, one of the women decides to play a prank on him. She takes advantage of her position as a nurse to send him false positives on his STD test results.
Screenplay by Alfonso Cuarón and Carlos Cuarón; Directed by Alfonso Cuarón, and premiering at the Toronto Film Festival on September 9, 1991.
FILM DISCUSSION
The movie is split up into various chapters that each contain what is meant to be an appropriate quote.
Tomás is a chronic womanizer, even going so far as to sleep with his ex on her wedding day.
He's quickly thrown into a madcap situation where he needs to juggle two women on the same night, across the hall from each other
He sneaks out the window and goes around the outside of the building a few stories up. This becomes a recurring set piece.
There he sees a woman he falls in love with, his new flight attendant neighbor.
The nurse that works at his friend's office is left somewhat jilted and annoyed in Tomás' sparse bachelor pad.
It's all meant to be funny, but the jokes don't land nearly as hard as he does in the water basin near the window that he should have known was there.
Thankfully he quickly gets caught in his ruse when the doctor and his wife come home early.
That plot driven sequence made sense, but there's a lot in the movie that's left unexplained, like why he runs down naked and twirls when picking up the paper each morning.
Or what's with the fascination with the cone-shaped paper cups.
Or near the end, where did this unattended child come from in the middle of the night?
It also doesn't make sense that he is tasked with entertaining the Japanese businessmen that are in town for the medical conference.
The fantasy/dream sequence was mildly interesting, but didn't go very far and was brief.
Ultimately the movie is a whirlwind of stuff with little purpose and characterization
We had a mini debate regarding how he found out about the positive AIDS test. The order of events were: the jogger reads it when he's in the bathroom and runs without telling him. She tells Paola, the woman he sleeps with in the first scene. Paola has been having an affair with the jogger's husband so she assumes she might have it and calls Tomás (this is the part we couldn't recollect). He then remembers to check his test result.
There's a large portion of the movie devoted to thoughts of suicide that is supposed to be funny but really doesn't land.
And the ending is too predictably zany, but at least we get some great shots of the city from up high.
Awards Talk: At the Ariel Awards that celebrates Mexican cinema, it won for Best Original Story and was Nominated for Best Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki lost to himself for Como aqua para chocolate/Like Water for Chocolate), Best Screenplay, and Best First Work.
TRUE CRIME & POP CULTURE
This week we again forego the crime segment and jump into television.
We go over some of the shows for September 9th
Nikki also goes into detail about a couple shows neither of us had much experience with:
Evening Shade - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098790/
The Adventures of Mark & Brian - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101033/
Moving on to Music, Nikki goes over some albums released in September.
Pixies - Trome Le Monde - released Sept 23 1991
Includes song “Alec Eiffel”
Saint Etienne - Foxbase Alpha - released Sept 16 1991
Includes song “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” written by Neil Young
Naughty By Nature - self titled - released Sept 3 1991
Includes songs “OPP” and “Everything’s Going to be Alright”
RANKINGS & RATINGS
Nikki 1-5 star scale - 3 out of 5
Jon 0-4 star scale - 1 out of 4
Would you watch it again? - Nikki says yes to see if it would possibly answer some questions. Jon says not a chance, but maybe would watch a "making of" featurette.
If you want to watch Sólo con tu pareja, as of this recording on July 2021, it’s available on Prime, Digital Purchase (not rental), DVD. Check your local listings.
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