NO SE ACEPTAN DEVOLUCIONES (INSTRUCTIONS NOT INCLUDED)
DIRECTOR: Eugenio Derbez
CAST: Eugenio Derbez, Jessica Lindsey, Loreto Peralta
CLASSIFICATION: 10 PG
RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes
RATING: ***
AMERICAN moviegoers may know Derbez (pictured) only from Jack and Jill, in which he played Felipe, the Mexican gardener who is romantically involved with the titular Jill, played by Adam Sandler in drag. They shouldn’t hold that crass and unfunny mess against the actor, who is a television superstar in his native Mexico.
He’s far funnier and far sweeter in Instructions Not Included, a Mexican dramedy directed by and starring Derbez that has been quietly released, without press screenings or reviews, in the US, surprising many box office observers by pulling in $10.4 million (R115m).
This is probably the result of the actor’s reputation among the Spanish-speaking audience. While polished, amusing and with some crossover appeal, the film is geared mainly to Latinos who are in the know. One joke in the film – which concerns an unemployed Acapulco playboy-turned-Hollywood-stuntman left to raise a child he fathered with one of his exes – is set up by the statistic that being a stuntman is one of the three most dangerous professions in the world. What’s number two? Pizza deliveryman in Mexico City.
I’m not sure how that punchline would play to a room full of viewers who are unfamiliar with crime in the Mexican capital, but an audience of Latinos, many of whom brought young children to a recent screening, ate it up.
And Derbez does make for a genial idiot as Valentin, growing from clueless new father to World’s Best Dad almost overnight, in a montage that covers seven years of his daughter Maggie’s growth. Loreto Peralta is also pretty adorable as the little girl, a bilingual charmer who serves as her hapless father’s interpreter in Los Angeles, where most of the film is set.
Several of the film’s jokes have to do with the fact that Maggie, whose mother (Jessica Lindsey) was American, is part “gringa”.
On more than one occasion, Valentin cites stereotypes – the blonde, blue-eyed, leggy American and the short, dark and plump Mexican – with presumably comic intentions. But it’s pushing the limits of good taste.
Although mostly a predictable comedy about parental ineptitude, Instructions not Included takes a surprisingly dark turn towards the end.
Despite coming out of left field, the serious conclusion makes for a far more interesting package.
One reason is that it’s such a departure from happy-ending dreck like Big Daddy and Three Men and a Baby. It’s fluff, but it’s weird fluff.
The other reason is that it works. The film’s counter-intuitive success is largely due to Derbez, who demonstrates why he is beloved south and north of the border. – Washington Post
If you liked Nosostros Les Nobles, you will like this.