Todo es mentira

It is weird that when growing up some of your tastes change, and some of your favourite books, albums or movies suddenly look or feel ridiculous. With "Todo es mentira" a different thing happened: I saw the movie changed. What at the time I saw as a typical Madrid urban comedy (yes, it was a subgenre at the time) now I see it as a very sad, dark drama that shows the many flaws of the generation X, which (we) were much more narcissistic than we let people see. It is not only the Alfie story about romances (which is a great point btw) but characters here feel themselves condemned to adapt to love because they are not able to see with their partner's eyes. There are very few redeemable qualities about the Coque Malla main character or his friends, now I see that the Penelope Cruz character is right on most of not all of her arguments and so many of the people featured in this movie are the kind of people I have learned to avoid in my adult life.

But there is a lot of charm too. It brings back to what Madrid life was about during the 90s (the jazz cafés are seriously missed), the acting is on point (including Fernando Colomo who otherwise popularised the Madrid urban comedy) and it is poignant. And it made us all think that we need to go to Cuenca, so close to Madrid, so great, and yet not so much visited.