Solo Con Tu Pareja is a buried treasure. It's a bombastic screwball comedy by Alfonso Cuaron, who has since masterfully crafted Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children of Men with stunning individuality and creativity, both of which are within the consistent, crisply paced spirit of slapstick and farce that flourishes throughout this enormously entertaining movie about Tomás Tomás, a yuppie playboy, and a young publicist. Silvia Silva, the frustrated dupe of one of his sexual misadventures, tries to get back at him by typing "positive" on his AIDS test. Tomás, wanting to end his life, meets Clarissa, a flight attendant, who is also trying to end her own after finding out that her boyfriend is having an affair.
It seems tasteless to make humor out of AIDS, but if it's funny, what's the problem? There isn't one then, is there? And one can't dispute that it's admirable for a film, not to mention a comedy, to break the myth that AIDS is a seclusively homosexual disease, a myth built by masculine ego, which this film parodies by its womanizing protagonist, played by an admittedly less than charming actor though it is a role that would not be far from ideal for Cary Grant.
Really, what makes the film so funny is how insensitive everyone is. So many characters laugh at someone's tragic misfortune, are cavalier with life-or-death situations, are indifferent towards farcical situations which tie themselves in knots and Clarissa, the flight attendant, winds up quite accidentally with Tomas's stool rather than the lunch she has packed. Cuaron, along with his brother Carlos with whom he collaborated on the zany screenplay, loosens us up with affronting insensitivity splashed all over his broad comedy.
Aside from some explosively hilarious moments, a lot of one's enjoyment derives from the time and place in which this obscure gem was made. It has the feel of a high-production- value 1990s movie and conceives an expressionistic treatment of Mexico City as a personality, as a character in this film. Everything in this movie is alive, so how can one be offended by the film's seeming tactlessness? The filmmakers clearly have enormous strength of mind. They merely show us that life is life and fate is fate.
It seems tasteless to make humor out of AIDS, but if it's funny, what's the problem? There isn't one then, is there? And one can't dispute that it's admirable for a film, not to mention a comedy, to break the myth that AIDS is a seclusively homosexual disease, a myth built by masculine ego, which this film parodies by its womanizing protagonist, played by an admittedly less than charming actor though it is a role that would not be far from ideal for Cary Grant.
Really, what makes the film so funny is how insensitive everyone is. So many characters laugh at someone's tragic misfortune, are cavalier with life-or-death situations, are indifferent towards farcical situations which tie themselves in knots and Clarissa, the flight attendant, winds up quite accidentally with Tomas's stool rather than the lunch she has packed. Cuaron, along with his brother Carlos with whom he collaborated on the zany screenplay, loosens us up with affronting insensitivity splashed all over his broad comedy.
Aside from some explosively hilarious moments, a lot of one's enjoyment derives from the time and place in which this obscure gem was made. It has the feel of a high-production- value 1990s movie and conceives an expressionistic treatment of Mexico City as a personality, as a character in this film. Everything in this movie is alive, so how can one be offended by the film's seeming tactlessness? The filmmakers clearly have enormous strength of mind. They merely show us that life is life and fate is fate.