La vida de nadie

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.

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.

I wish that I had a grain of sugar for every story about a woman who is married to a man who turns out to be someone else, or in this case, a total fraud. I could make a few pounds of candy with all of that sugar, but with this film, I'm not even left with anything resembling a satisfying ending. If you read the synopsis, you know exactly what the film is about so waiting for the story to unfold was extremely anti-climatic. After we see what's going on, it's just a matter of running out the clock.

I've read that this was based on a true story, and there are countless examples of men who have parallel lives, sometimes several of them. I just seems like way too much work, at least to me. Lord, one family would be way too many as far as I'm concerned.

Overall, this was a huge bore and I mostly fast-forwarded through it.

I just watched this movie at the Santo Domingo International Film Festival. While watching the movie I had the feeling that I have seen a movie with a similar story before...a movie with Ray Liotta but I can't remember much of it. Of course, this one is a lot more dramatic, especially at the end.

This is the story: Emilio's life becomes a lie that he can not longer sustain. After 20 years lying about his entire life to his wife, son and all the people he knows, the truth is chasing him and there is nowhere to go.

Watching Emilio make up lies is exiting and funny but after a while you get tired of the same thing...the affair with a young girl was supposed to ad something but it doesn't. Despite that the movie is still funny, exiting and involving. Either it makes you want to help Emilio with his lies or help everybody else catch him. I liked the analogies, photography and the good performances.

7.5 out of 10.

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.