NO FILTER (SIN RODEOS)

A Spanish remake of Nicolas Lopez’s Chilean film No Filter (there was also a Mexican version called A Woman without Filter), Director Santiago Segura helms this take on the original which was a smash hit in Spain. It stars Maribel Verdú (Pan’s Labyrinth, Y Tu Mamá También) as Paz, a repressed and dominated woman both in her relationship with feckless, freeloading painter Dante (Rafael Spregelburd) and his live-in wastrel son Toulouse (Daniel Medina) and at work, with cretinous sleazy employer Borja (David Guapo) and doggedly ambitious work colleague, Alicia (Cristina Pedroche). As an alternative to anti-anxiety meds, Paz takes a herbal remedy from pseudo-shaman and healer Amil Narayan (Santiago Segura) which makes her honest, blunt and assertive. To a fault. Though the format was better utilised in Jim Carrey’s Liar, Liar, here it’s played very broadly and with a distinctly traditional Spanish view of sexuality and gender, so the film does have its amusing moments of silly comedy but it’s a little blunt-edged in this age of ‘wokeness’. It’s a little like a US sex comedy from the late nineties in that respect.

Despite the lack of any rudimentary character arcs for any of the parasitic ciphers who populate her life (no one seems to learn anything or indeed change their ways) the moral of the film seems to be ‘brutalise and abuse those who take you for granted or mistreat you, thus earning their respect’, which does seem a bit ‘prison-yard’. Even so, Verdú is appealing as the lead and tired old gender tropes aside, ultimately this bright, colourful and silly film just wants to superficially please and make you giggle despite yourself. Mission accomplished.