Nobody's Life

IMDb 6.9/10 ROTTENTOMATOES 3.8/5

A man's life, who is not what he appears to be, is about to change.

I was very surprised when I watched the movie, because the viewer develops such strong and contradictory feelings for the main character while you witnessing his actions in disbelief.

Tension is well build and the story is well told. Performances are good.

The pace is slow at the beginning but it increases along with the suspense.

Based on a true story.

I enjoyed the suspense, but I felt the movie to be rather clinical and Hollywood in style. It could have been set anywhere. There is nothing in the movie that gives me that 'made in Spain' sort of movie appeal, such as Almodovar movies do.

Emilio is a successful business man, a perfect father and a good husband. Or that is what everybody think. The perfect storyline he has carefully built all along these years will start closing around him all of a sudden. Will he be able to keep up with his own lies?

This is a very well laid out drama, with great acting and steady direction. Even though the plot is pushed up to the limit to increase the tension, the movie explores some of our worst fears... Do we really know the people we deal with? Can we be so sure?

The story develops at an increasingly faster pace as it reaches the point where Emilio is not in control of his lies anymore. A good deal of Spanish movies have interesting stories but are far from technical proficiency. The perfect rhythm and well shot scenes make the actors so credible, we get inside Emilio, and hate him, and suffer for him, as his situation gets more and more desperate. There is no need for any Spanish folklore, nor is this an attempt to create a Hollywood style flick. This is real Spain, 2002, and regardless the obvious unlikeliness of Emilio's life existing in reality, there are good chances somebody we know is not quite like the person he claims to be. Not just a great commercial product, it will let you wondering where lies can get us to. Can we keep up?

Well done.

Of course, how could he. He obviously co-opted several aspects from that excellent movie, which was also based on the sensational French case of the self-described "doctor in the World Health Organization" who murdered his family and himself when finally unmasked as a fraud. Emilio refers to his son as "monster," he sings to the radio in his car, he hangs out on park benches, and he specializes in investment schemes to defraud his family and friends -- all of this and more directly lifted from "Time Out," which came out the year before "Nobody's Life." It's too bad because this movie is pretty good on its own, with good acting and writing. Whereas Vincent from "Time Out" is a much more subtle character who seems to have a sense of ethics even though at times it gets twisted into knots, the protagonist here seems devoid of any character at all save for his winning looks and charm. Seriously, the part where he used X-rays that show his mother-in-law's cancer to bilk more money from his father, then utilizes a subtle twist on the same scam to avoid eviction from his fancy home for failing to pay the lease on time -- it's almost too much. The guy has no shame whatsoever, In fact, he's more like the lead in "Stepfather" than some poor schmuck who gets fired and is so humiliated that he can't face the disappointment of his family and friends and feels forced to invent a shiny new life for himself, as Vincent did in "Time Out." Thus, one could feel the tension mounting in "Nobody's Life" and the violent conclusion coming. One thing "Nobody's Life" has that "Time Out" definitely lacked was a love interest apart from the protagonist's trusting wife. It's not hard to understand how the sexy babysitter was able to fascinate and ensnare Emile to the degree that he ignored the danger of her natural curiosity and allowed it to lay bare his less than carefully constructed con. Given the reservations mentioned, this is a pretty good movie that we found entertaining. If you long for something touching on similar elements that goes a might deeper and is more intellectually and spiritually satisfying, I strongly suggest "Time Out."

Very good movie, very tasteful throughout including well placed nudity. This is not a happy movie, as it aims at showing family life that is not happy, but not tragic either. As you watch you get a feeling of mundane daily depressing life and people just doing things because that is what people do in life. It is just a man, a woman, their kid and a babysitter navigating their daily routines. The whole movie revolves around that, the characters normal daily lives. Nothing special happens at all. There are no magic events, not glamorous plots... just daily life. So how do you make that interesting to watch? Well, you take well written characters, have them cast with good actors and have a good script to back it up.

The highlight and pivotal element here is that Emilio is a scam through and through. We are shown that he is a liar early on and throughout the movie that continues to be reinforced. Everything about him is a lie, and as the movie progresses we are shown more of his lies and how they affect those around him. We almost want to feel for him as he tries to hang onto his life of lies he has built but at the same time, we also see how he continues to manipulate and create more lies to keep the old lies "true" and you get a sense of disgust about him. You know it will all crash at the end; you watch and shake your head wanting to say to him - STOP, but alas, you cannot do that. You are in for the ride.

And i have to say the ending is not happy, but logical and it leaves you angry. Not because of what happens, but because you have that one conversation where you think that you will get closure about him and that is something that is not in the script. The movie ends and leaves you empty, and you will remember that moment and to me that is good and fitting. You can feel sad, or you can feel happy, but whichever one you feel, you will feel empty. And that impact on the viewer is what good drama is all about.