“It is a dramatic comedy about a group of longtime friends, it's not the usual boy meets girl stuff, and what is at stake is whether they will keep on being friends or not,” states Argentine filmmaker Juan Taratuto (Un novio para mi mujer, La reconstrucción), about his new film Papeles en el viento, based on the novel of the same name by Eduardo Sacheri, who also co-wrote the film with Taratuto. Sacheri is the author of the novel La pregunta de sus ojos, adapted into the 2010 Academy Award-winning The Secret in Their Eyes.
In Papeles en el viento, this group of four forty-something friends and soccer fans have to face the death of one of them, el Mono (Diego Torres), because of cancer. Prior to his demise, El mono had invested U$300,000 to buy a young soccer player who showed great promise, but ultimately turned out to be a dissapointment.
Now the remaining friends, Fernando (Diego Peretti), Mauricio (Pablo Echárri) and El Ruso (Pablo Rago) need to recoup the investment to provide El Mono's young daughter with the money to make sure she will grow up with no monetary problems.
But considering how harsh and foul the bussiness of soccer can be, their enterprise is bound to face endless difficulties. Let alone the arguments among themselves resulting from trying to agree on what strategies to employ. So will they remain friends and accomplish their goal or will they grow apart? What would the best road to take?
These are some of the questions posed as the film unfolds. Unfortunately, Papeles en el viento tends to lack the neccesary dramatic progression to provide a gripping scenario. There’s two main reasons for this: most of the conflict is repetitively conveyed via explanatory dialogue that leaves little room for anything else (at times you could close your eyes and still miss nothing), and the overall mise en scène is not cinematic — it often resembles a conventional TV movie. So no wonder after a while the film becomes static and somewhat dull.
On the plus side, the four actors give engaging, well-tuned performances and convey the feeling that they are longtime friends at ease. They manage to make the most out of the few actions and reactions the script offers them, and even add some flair to many good dialogue lines. The supporting actors do quite a decent job as well. You could say that if the film holds some interest until the end it’s because the actors flesh out their characters even more aptly than the somewhat underwritten script.
The sentimental tone in the film may seem too easy to like, but this is a deliberate choice on the part of the filmmaker, and it does work out as intended.
Yes, it's not the best possible choice for a film that needed a more profound gaze, but you can’t blame the director for getting it right in his own terms. All in all, Papeles en el viento is watchable, and this is also an achievement, even if a minor one.
Production notes
Papeles en el viento (Argentina, 2014). Directed by Juan Taratuto. Written by: Juan Taratuto and Eduardo Sacheri, based on the latter’s novel. With Diego Peretti, Pablo Echarri, Pablo Rago, Diego Torres, Cecilia Dopazo, Paola Barrientos, Cacho Buenaventura, Daniel Rabinovich. Distributed by: Disney.
