A Spanish sex comedy with an Altman/Almodóvar feel
It's sultry midsummer and not quite night when a baker's dozen of dreamers converge upon Madrid's central point, Kilometer Zero at the Puerta del Sol, for rendezvous and romance.But, as in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, an unseen hand will steer people not toward their blind date but to one who might be a snugger emotional fit.
It's sultry midsummer and not quite night when a baker's dozen of dreamers converge upon Madrid's central point, Kilometer Zero at the Puerta del Sol, for rendezvous and romance.
But, as in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, an unseen hand will steer people not toward their blind date but to one who might be a snugger emotional fit.
Km. 0 - Kilometer Zero, a lighthearted sex comedy flashed with melodrama, is an ensemble affair whose archetypes include male and female prostitutes, a bartender, a bored housewife, a businessman, an aspiring actress, a would-be filmmaker, and a celebrated director.
The film plays like a multicharacter Robert Altman film under the mischievous influence of Pedro Almodóvar. Like its characters, the movie itself is an odd assortment of the blase, the romantic and the farcical, attitudes that clash here as often as they complement one another.
Writer-directors Yolanda García Serrano and Juan Luis Iborra create characters pretty evenly divided between goal-oriented women and drifting men, which makes the dynamic of their film different from most such ensemble comedies. Likewise the characters are evenly divided between straight and gay, although there is one, Sergio (Alberto San Juan), who is undeclared.
The women include a 30ish actress (Mercé Pons) who literally throws herself in front of a car to get the attention of the director driving it. There is a teenager (Cora Tiedra) who stages a campaign for the heart of her sister's diffident fiance. And there's a middle-aged housewife (Concha Valasco), snubbed by her spouse, who hires a male escort eager to give her the kind of attention she's not receiving at home.
The males mostly serve as background to bring the females out into higher relief. They include Pedro (Carlos Fuentes), the young filmmaker who turns a strumpet into a swan.
Most of the characters repair to a bar conveniently located near Km. 0 where their respective stories unfold.
Although mostly sunny and occasionally as steamy as the 100-degrees-in-the-shade temperature, the diverting film lacks a hub that might firmly hold together its narrative spokes. Sex puts this narrative wheel in motion to the extent that this film, in apposition to another release today, might be called Sex Actually.
It may be that the filmmakers think that the hub of their film literally is Kilometer Zero, that they don't require a unifying theme to bring together their disparate characters. They are wrong. For as enjoyable as the film is in its parts, what's missing is the event or force that would cohere them.
Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com.
Km. 0 - Kilometer Zero ** 1/2 (out of four stars)
Produced by Gianni Ricci, written and directed by Yolanda García Serrano and Juan Luis Iborra, photography by Angel Luis Fernández, music by Joan Bibiloni, distributed by TLA Releasing. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Running time: 1 hour, 45 mins.
Marga. . . Concha Valasco
Amor. . . Silke
Gerardo. . . Georges Corraface
Benjamín. . . Miguel García
Pedro. . . Carlos Fuentes
Parent's guide: No MPAA rating (nudity, sex, profanity)
Playing at: Roxy Theater