The year is 2001, and Argentina is hitting the lowest point in its great depression. His glory days far behind him, retired soccer star Fermín (Darín senior) now runs a service station in a sleepy provincial town. Hoping to pull his family and their community out of decline, Fermín seeks to convert some abandoned grain silos into a viable storage facility. He convinces friends to invest in the cooperative, but is railroaded by a conniving bank manager into placing their cash into a savings account just as the banks are about to be frozen by the government, rendering their money useless and their plans quashed.

For a time things seem only to get worse, until rumours spread of a secret depository containing the cooperative’s pilfered cash and much, much more. With Fermín as their Robin Hood–esque leader, the group conspires to infiltrate the cache, but it’s going to take some serious resolve, a little inspiration, and a lot of luck to pull off this honest-person heist.

Revenge has never felt so satisfying – or sweetly ironic.
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When Ana (Morán, Neruda, The Motorcycle Diaries) and Marco (Darín, Truman, Wild Tales) arrive at the airport to farewell their son Luciano, who is leaving his Argentine homeland to study abroad, they are filled with certainty that they’ve done well as parents. However, his departure leaves a significant hole in their everyday lives, and after more than twenty years of marriage, both reluctantly come to admit that their feelings for each other have shifted.

So as if it were one last project together, Ana and Marco decide to ‘consciously uncouple’, and begin to explore the surprising and sometimes wonderful world of the newly-single, to hilarious and unexpected results.

This wonderful showcase for its two leads unsurprisingly stormed the local box office, becoming one of Argentina’s biggest hits of the year. Intelligent, warm and wise, AN UNEXPECTED LOVE is a sheer delight.

An Unexpected Love will be released in Australian cinemas July 4.
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Laura (Penélope Cruz) returns to Spain for the wedding from her home in Buenos Aires. She is traveling with her children but not her husband. She comes in contact with an old flame Paco (Javier Bardem). They enjoy an idyllic ceremony, even the man of the cloth pimping for his church does little to tarnish the joy.

The afterparty is going strong with lots of dancing and free flowing alcohol when suddenly there is a power failure. It’s from this point on, the film switches gears and becomes a thriller. This puts you in the position of becoming a detective and asks you to unravel the clues to figure out what’s going on.

The film builds its suspense at a very laggard pace and the clues it gives you are often times a bit too obvious. It does however make you question all of the minor player’s motives and with a cast this size that can be a bit of a challenge. Things pick up a bit at the conclusion and it ends on a note that is very un-Hollywood.

Rob Hudson
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