¨Sleepless in Madrid¨ or ¨Insomnio¨ is a touching and interesting drama with comedy adding emotion , love stories and amusing elements ; including enjoyable performances , with roles very well developed . Insomnio joins three lives : a single mother (Cristina Marcos) who needs to maintain her job as a TV producer and seeks new apartment ; her neighbor girl (Candela Peña), a stage actress without a penny to her name who has suffered a loving break and a young (Ernesto Alterio) who doubts upon his sentimental future and about get married to his jealous girlfriend (Maria Pujalte) . All of them have insomnia and will have to make some decisions that could cost them everything .
This is an entertaining Dramedy : Drama and comedy ; it describes vividly Spanish existences about a few characters . It is a moving picture plenty of passion , romances , love breaking , human relationships and many other things . The movie explores issues of middle and lower classes with bad-paid , part-time works , examining the way in which a society , especially young people , react to the ordinary problems throughout their lives . It is an examination of sensitivity contemporary , social and habit concerns . From start to finish the intense drama , enjoyable comedy , thrills , emotion and surprises are continuous . Interesting and stirring screenplay by Juan Flahn , the prestigious Fernando León de Aranoa and the same director Chus Gutiérrez . This brooding as well as attractive flick can be defined as a thought-provoking drama , an exciting fresco with emotion , love stories and a social fable . It contains enjoyable and interesting moments as the picture is more a drama than a comedy film . It's an acceptable movie but it also has ups and downs , resulting to be slow-moving , too . Anyway , its is compensated with the great performances , as the cast gets credible and nuanced acting that enrich the flick . This film grabs our attention , beginning with a really agreeable performance from Cristina Marcos and Candela Peña . In fact , Cristina Marcos won award Best Actress for Insomnio in Peñíscola Comedy Film Festival , 1998 . Support cast is pretty good such as Ginés García Millán , Fele Martínez , Saturnino García , Alberto San Juan , Chete Lera , Mariola Fuentes , Antonio De La Torre who usually plays in Chus Gutierrez's films and Amara Carmona who starred ¨Alma Gitana¨ . The movie packs a charming and brilliant musical score by Mateo Alonso . And adequate as well as atmospheric cinematography by Arnaldo Catinari , being shot on locations from Madrid .
The yarn is always dramatic as well as hilarious when is executed with style and the filmmaker certainly seems to have that . The motion picture well produced by Cesar Benitez was professionally directed by Chus Gutiérrez . She is one of the best Spanish directors who has realized some good films such as ¨Alma Gitana¨, ¨Sexo Oral¨ , ¨Sublet¨, ¨Ciudad Delirio¨ , ¨Calentito¨ and a diptych titled ¨Poniente¨ along with ¨Retorno a Hansal¨ , both of them dealing with illegal immigration and a similar cast as Jose Coronado , Cuca Escribano , Antonio Dechent and Antonio De La Torre .
