As a scriptwriter, he wrote screenplays for small screen films such as Ecos (2006) and Codi 60 (2011), but is best known for his work in series such as Absolute majority (2004) and The color of the cuitat (2004-09). All tech aspects are well handled, with Fernando Velazquez’s busy score a highlight and Xavi Gimenez’s camerawork easily transitioning between the film’s twin settings, which boil down to the glossy urban and the wintry rural.Oriol Paulo studied audiovisual communication at Pompeu Fabra University and film at the Los Angeles Film School. Viewers who take Goodman’s advice to focus on the details will have figured out the ending after the first half hour, but that will only matter when the final scene arrives and fails to make its impact: Guest‘s destination may be too clearly signaled, but getting there makes for an exciting ride. Lennie, Wagener and Coronado all dominate Casas in their scenes with him. But we’re not made to care - though the performances, from some of Spain’s strongest talent, are very strong. It would be a nice bonus if we could care about the characters with all our attention focused on the events. Despite its impressive economy - basically, it’s all about four characters - It loses its grip on plausibility over the final half hour, in rapidly unfolding scenes that in retrospect fall apart. If both The Body and The Invisible Guest can be criticized, it’s because they both feel a little too chilly, too obvious in their construction, and too keen to excite: A couple of twists fewer would not have hurt and would have left more in reserve for the big finale. Various possible scenarios are presented skillfully - some real, some lies and some imagined. Every time it does not, she probes him a little more, insisting all the while on the importance of detail, which of course keeps the viewer watching carefully too. At the house, Laura realizes something that will color everything that comes later, while the storytelling shifts up a technical gear, recounting events that took place simultaneously and playing interesting games with point of view.Įvents make regular returns to the hotel room where Goodman, whose job is to be suspicious, is testing Adrian to make sure his story will hold up. The backroads accident kills a young driver, and Laura panics: They agree that Adrian will get rid of the body while Laura will wait for help, which comes in the form of local man, middle-aged Tomas Garrido (Jose Coronado, who played the lead in The Body), who tows her car back to his family home. Because a last-minute witness is threatening to show up at the soon-to-start trial with damning new evidence, they have three hours, as Goodman’s stopwatch literally clicks away, to come up with a defense - the Spanish title, meaning setback, translates literally as “against time.” And Goodman actually doesn’t believe a word of Doria’s blackmail story.Īn alternative version by Doria slowly emerges. To help him out, Doria hires the silver-gray haired, renowned witness preparation expert Virginia Goodman (Ana Wagener, a fine actress whose moment finally has come) and their face-to-faces as they circle the truth are among the film’s most memorable. This very contemporary film has its roots in such classic fare as The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Agatha Christie, and John Dickson Carr’s locked-room mystery masterpiece, The Hollow Man. Following an apparent blackmail attempt - there’s a lot about Guest that is “apparent” or “seeming” - successful businessman Adrian Doria (Mario Casas, an actor who could have made a successful living as a pretty-boy hunk, but who prefers to take roles - with varying success - which will challenge him as an actor) is found in a locked hotel room with the dead body of his lover, fashion photographer Laura Vidal (Barbara Lennie, doing a modern-day femme fatale to follow her winsome turn in Nelly Regueras‘ Maria (And the Others)).
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