Un Padre No Tan Padre

I saw this Mexican comedy tonight at my local theater in Northwest Indiana, and although I guess was expecting more based on what I had heard about it, I thought it was pretty good.

The plot concerns an elderly retired man who gets kicked out of the retirement home in which he lives, and goes to the Mexican city of San Miguel de Allende in order to live with his middle-aged son. The son lives with around 8 or 10 other people in a large house, in sort of a commune atmosphere. For example, a gay couple live there, along with a guy who sells drugs to locals. Also, an American woman and a man from England live with the son. Those two run a coffee shop. A Cuban guitarist is also a resident. So the commune culture and establishment clash, so to speak, when the 80 something year-old father comes to live there. A lot of the comedy is based on that premise, so some of those jokes are fairly predictable.

However, what makes the film pretty decent is the fact that it has good character development, despite the fact that there are a larger number of supporting roles.

The movie has very good cinematography also(many great shots of San Miguel).

In addition, I think this film is well directed ; the timing, holding of shots for the right amount of time, etc, are all good.

Note that this movie is in Spanish with English subtitles.