MAD BILLS TO PAY - CAMBRIDGE FILM FESTIVAL
Is there anything more fascinating than poking into other people’s lives? I’ve always felt that being a fly on the wall is a bit unfair to flies. What we nosey parkers need is a great big bluebottle on the wall. The bigger the better. These muscid musings came to mind watching ‘Mad Bills to Pay’ or in its much more accurate Spanish title, ‘Destiny, Dile Que No Soy Malo’. The ‘Destiny’ here is the teenage girlfriend of nineteen year-old Rico who has got the Latino miss in what used to be called ‘club de los puddings’. We are in the Bronx close up and very personal with members of the NYC’s Dominican community.
Rico lives at home with his hard-working but exhausted single mum Andrea and his younger sister Sally. In a directorial debut by Alfonso Vargas, the film offers an authentic horsefly on the wall view of a poor family in constant battle. Anyone who has brought up teenagers will find the family feuding uncomfortably familiar: the screaming matches, the door slamming, the foot stamping and the sibling warfare – ‘you’re always taking his side’. Sally has upset her mum by going out clubbing when she was supposed to be revising (isn’t that hard to imagine!) and Rico, well Rico!
Played with superbly accurate observation by Juan Collado, Rico is a bit of a drifter. He makes what money he has hustling sunbathers on Orchard Beach with his homemade cocktails. Destiny Checho is outstanding as his pregnant girlfriend with the same first name. But what is her destiny? To be cared for by the wayward man-child Rico who is mesmerized by the prospect of becoming a father, or to achieve her dream of going to college? There’s a wonderful scene when Destiny comes to dinner shortly after Andrea learns about Rico’s dalliance. So embarrassed and unable to raise her head, or speak beyond the quietest grunt, Destiny begins a journey of trial by Rico.
What I loved about this busy, music-infused, restless movie, is that no one , not Rico for instance, is painted as the bad guy. Rico means well, he is essentially a lovely person but family circumstances, poverty and immaturity block his attempts to become what Destiny wants him to be – a stable father who will be able to provide for his new family. Nathaly Navarro captures the loving but volatile teenie sister with astounding precision. Though scripted, the whole film has a sense of improvised drama. There is plenty to smile about especially in Rico’s ill-founded resilience. We see him not holding down a job in a diner and driving his mother-to-be girlfriend to packing her bags (more than once)
The naturalism of the players and the jumpy, often unbalance camerawork provide us with a rare insight into what really goes in other people’s lives. If this film comes round again, don’t worry about being a fly on the wall, rather make sure you are a bum on a seat.
https://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/
