Who Gets Sold the Fantasy
My Friend Eva, a Spanish film that opened across Israeli theaters on Thursday, is billed as a romantic comedy, but it is described as more accurately an unromantic one, defined by covert cynicism. The film packages desire, marriage, and midlife dissatisfaction into a polished story about people who all seem to live inside the same tasteful little bubble, where even unhappiness arrives with good lighting and appetizing-looking food.
The film stars Nora Navas in the title role as Eva, a character who is bored and discontented with her life, specifically her husband. Eva leaves Barcelona on a business trip to Rome, where she is an executive at a publishing house, and becomes smitten with the man in the hotel room next to hers, Alex, played by Rodrigo de la Serna, a handsome Argentinian screenwriter who lives in Spain. Their first encounter is a meet-cute when the adjoining door between their rooms is left ajar and she walks on him naked, then backs out in embarrassment. The setup is classic romantic machinery, but the film keeps nudging it toward something more brittle and less obedient.
When he runs into her in the lobby, he is not upset; instead, they flirt, and he suggests she have dinner at a restaurant he recommends. When they run into each other again, he convinces her to go to a birthday party for some friends, and everyone assumes they are a couple. He knows she is married, and while it is clear he does not care, she gets so tipsy that nothing happens afterward, and they each go their separate ways. Their flirtation makes enough of an impression on him that he leaves her a book with his phone number and an invitation to call him anytime.
The Marriage in the Background
She keeps looking at the book and thinking about him as she returns to her usual routine, which includes being with Victor, played by Juan Diego Botto, her husband, who works in hi-tech and has a passion for interior design. The couple has two charming children and a lovely apartment, and they often entertain other couples who have similar lifestyles. The film’s world is one of managed comfort, where the people at the center of the story are insulated by money, taste, and the soft machinery of social approval.
One night at a dinner party with their married friends, Eva makes a throwaway comment about how she envies a friend who has just gotten divorced after she saw him on the street kissing his new girlfriend. Victor takes it as a condemnation of their relationship, and everyone assures him that she did not mean anything by it and tells him not to take it personally. But although Eva does not own up to it at first, it was a very personal remark, and the soft-spoken Victor was right to get upset and feel threatened. The film lets the social circle smooth over the tension, the way these polished milieus always do, with everyone pretending the rupture is smaller than it is.
What Desire Looks Like in the Market
It is usually the men in movies who have this kind of sudden-onset midlife crisis, but here it is Eva who impulsively decides to move out of her apartment and start dating. She has been texting with Alex, and her hopes are high. But when it looks as if he is unavailable, she throws herself into the dating pool and discovers that it is hard to feel passion for the men she meets there. One is very cheap, another is kind of boring, some of them are not good in bed, and for many attractive men her age, Eva, who is about to turn 50, is too old for them.
The review says this echoes what Nora Ephron wrote in her novel Heartburn about women leaving their marriages in the 1970s: "Their wives went out into the world, free at last, single again, and discovered the horrible truth: That they were sellers in a buyer’s market, and that the major concrete achievement of the women’s movement in the 1970s was the Dutch treat," she wrote. The review says maybe Ephron went a little too far with the "Dutch treat" crack, but the idea becomes clear very quickly, and so does Eva. The dating world here is not liberation so much as a market, with age, desirability, and disappointment all priced into the arrangement.
The film is directed by Cesc Gay, who co-wrote it with Eduard Sola. The review says the film plays with the idea of Eva finding great love and makes fun of it, though it pulls its punches a little toward the end, hinting at a happily-ever-after for the heroine. The review also says all the characters are from the same milieu, are effortlessly attractive, wear the same kind of tasteful casual clothes, and eat and drink the same appetizing-looking food and wine. Victor tends to go on about what kind of rug he wants for the living room, but that is the worst thing said about him, and many women would find that to be a positive aspect in a husband.
The review says no one has any big problems, and no one is distinctive in any way, and that while it is natural to long for one’s youth and have romantic fantasies, it is hard to imagine anyone in this world of fine wine and lovely sweaters feeling very passionate about anything. The reviewer says they would have liked the film better if the director had found even more comedy in Eva’s disillusionment.