LUCIA, LUCIA
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten Grade: B- Fox Seachlight Pictures Directed by: Antonio Serrano Written by: Antonio Serrano Cast: Cecilia Roth, Carlos Alvarez-Novoa, Kuno Becker, Javier Diaz Duenas, Margarita Isabel Screened at: AMC, NYC, 7/27/03
Menopause has long been considered a rite of passage for women, though of late articles have shown that men undergo bodily changes that resemble that very condition. Similarly, mid-life crisis has always been falsely attributed solely to men, as though women go steadily from one decade to another, paragons of stability. In this latter case, a Mexican film should give biologists and psychologists pause: maybe women do not get hot for Beamer convertibles when they hit their forties, but divorce statistics prove we shouldn't be surprised if many re- evaluate their marriages at about that age.
Anto nio Serrano adds evidence to the theory in his inventive "Lucia, Lucia" (called La hija del canibel" in the original Mexican version to refer to a political, rather than dietary cannibal). Blessed with the talent of one of Pedro Almodovar's favorite performers, five-times Goya-winning actress Cecilia Roth in the role of the forty-something resident of Mexico City, "Lucia, Lucia" takes off or more accurately does not take off when the title character (Cecilia Roth) is about to go with her husband Ramon on a vacation to Rio. Trouble begins when Ramon, last seen going into the men's room at Mexico City's airport, does not re-appear, causing the panicked Lucia to return home. Given a ransom call asking 20 million pesos, writer-director Serrano appears to be heading into the same ol' same ol' kidnap subgenre, but luckily for us he has quite a few tricks up his sleeve and how fortunate for Lucia that two of her neighbors, the twenty-something handsome Adrian (Kuno Belcker) and the 70-year-old Felix (Carlos Alvarez-Novoa), have come to her assistance.
The kicker in the story is that until the kidnapping, Lucia was convinced that she was happily married. Now with the thought that her husband may not be coming home and given the amorous advances made by a kid young enough to be her son, she begins to wonder whether she'd be better off either carrying on with younger men or simply allowed to be free of all entanglements.
Lucia keeps us off balance from time to time by simply lying about the flat in which she's living and about the date of the kidnapping for example, until we begin to wonder whether her vivid imagination is at work. However, when she lies she usually tells us in the audience moments later, and we understand that this author of children's books is simply exercising her newfound talent as a writer of mature fiction.
As the story progresses, the valise carrying the ransom money is delivered but no Ramon in fact we wonder how a dull employee of a bank could have 20 million pesos stashed in a safe-deposit box until we're let in on a secret: the Mexican government is corrupt from top to bottom with Ramon's representing a level somewhere near the latter.
We're given considerable character development, such as Felix's leftist background as a man who fought Franco on the Republican side, but the focus, despite some overly complex plotting, remains on how Lucia finds herself at the not-too-late age of about 47 (Ms. Roth's actual age).
The kidnapping, the coming-of-age aspect, the romance between the handsome young Adrian and the still lovely Lucia even the corruption of police officials and high representatives of the Mexican state department are treated lightly. Nothing in the story gives us insights we're not already aware of, but Serrano's weaving from love story to politics to crime gives the film its interest and originality as does the incredible performance by Cecilia Roth.
Rated R. 113 minutes.(c) 2003 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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