La famiglia ideale

Sweet production. Good actors. Many good ideas. But 1 hour 45 minutes is a bit too short for all the interesting storylines and all these good actors. I really would have watched like 12 episodes of this.

Belén Rueda plays Lucía, a middle-aged, upper-class woman who believes she leads a model life and has a perfect family, with a wealthy husband (Gonzalo de Castro) and an obedient, lawyer son (Alfonso Ramos). But everything falls apart when she meets her son's girlfriend (Carolina Yuste) and her family, leaving her to question what a perfect family really is. When she meets her potential future relatives, a lower-class family, her world changes, since they are not at all what she imagined for him. Things take a turn for the worse when she has a romantic encounter with the girlfriend's father, Miguel (José Coronado).

The second feature film by director Arantxa Echevarria after the multi-awarded "Carmen y Lola", which also stars Carolina Yuste. A star-studded cast led by Belén Rueda, José Coronado and Gonzalo de Castro in a story with brief dramatic touches, full of entaglements, plot twists, misunderstandings, snobs, 'chonis', and a slap in the face of personal, family and social reality. The main starring is Belén Rueda , who gives a decent acting as the perfectionist, narcissistic and domineering mother who hides, beneath her haughty facade, a deep insecurity. Belén continues to prove herself one of the best actresses in Spain, with each film she appears in -although somewhat older, already in her sixties- , but she is capable of displaying great versatility, knowing how to give each role her innate elegance and utmost talent. Belén is an expert actress in mystery and horror movies, although she has not ruled out other genres, such as comedy, as demonstrates in this one "The perfect family". She has starred in blockbuster films such as: "Los ojos de Julia (Julia's eyes)", "El Orfanato ( The orphanage), "Durante la tormenta", "El Pacto (The pacto), "El cuaderno de Sara (Sarah's notebook)", "Órbita 9", "No Dormirás", "The Body (The body)" or recent, "Caída Libre (Free fall)". The movie also features performances by Gonzalo Ramos, Pepa Arniote, and, of course, Carolina Yuste, recent Goya winner for her acting in "La infiltrada".

The motion picture was professionally directed by Arantxa Echevarria, although it has some falls in rhythm, and the comic situations that arise are hampared by being too artificial, lacking spontaneity. Arantxa has also directed "Carmen y Lola", "Chinas", "Politically incorrect" and the multi-Goya winning film "La infiltrada", alongside her favorite actress Carolina Yuste. Score: 5,5/10. Acceptable and passable movie, recommeded for fans of Belén Rueda, José Coronado and Carolina Yuste.

The beginning was promising. It seemed the classical clash of classes with comical situations. Then the movie becomes a complete nonsense with many plotholes. The character Lucía evolves from comical to completely illogical.

In the end, it is more a movie about the evolution of the character of Lucía. The writers tried to disguise the movie as a comedy. However, the result is bad as comedy and bad as a movie about the evolution of Lucía.

My rate is 2, not 1 just because of the acting of José Coronado.

About love and wornout relationships due to many years marriage, symptoms that the grumpy old man reckognize and have been and do still fight against, due to lots of reasos, but in sickness and health we shall endure to death or whatever they say in the wows on your wedding day, a day that the grumpy old man was so nervous that day my mind has completely cut away from my memorandum, but that was a blustery day yes, and my niece were babbling just behind us in the church irritatingly repeating ''no,no,no,no...'' so i ended up shakingly saying yes, at the same time wishing to flap the flabber outta thet nosy creature crawling behind my back...

its a at moments a honest and laughworthy comedy with loads of twists and shocking thrills, but also some plotholes here and there with a nonbalanced timeline, but the castensemble delivers from good to great, and if you like spanish neomodern comedy done in a linguistically beautiful way, without too much rattattatta-ta dialouges uzi style i give this a seven from my heart.

A bit long playtime but the opposites are fascinating, so go for it if you've got time.

Movie builds on a time tested idea of two worlds colliding, where people from different backgrounds start to date and their respective families are very different. It was done with race, religion, culture and of course class.

So here we have a man from a well-off family dating a woman from working class. Prim and proper vs rough around the edges and no filter.

Entire thing is mostly predictable in the first half, but then movie takes a turn and moves away from goofy comedy into more "finding yourself" territory as parents start to interact and their outlooks start to rub on each other.

Some people would see that as false advertising and not what they wanted, but I think it's kind of neat as jokes based on initial premise start to wear a bit thin.

Good enough movie to kill an evening and then quickly forget about.