Dolphins Go East review: Filmmakers Gonzalo Delgado and Verónica Perrota co-direct, co-write and act in this appealing family comedy/ drama from Uruguay.
Dolphins Go East review by Paul Heath at the 2017 Transilvania International Film Festival.
Dolphins Go East review
From Uruguay comes this comedy from directors Gonzalo Delgado and Verónica Perrota. Dolphins Go East plays in-competition at this year’s Romania based Transilvania International Film Festival with the duo hoping to build on their Delgado’s previous success as a writer at the festival with Whisky, which took the Transilvania Trophy back in 2004.
At the start of the film we meet Virginia (played by the co-director Perrotta), a thirty-something teacher seen rounding up her young primary school pupils late on a Friday afternoon. It becomes apparent that Virginia also has plans for the weekend and relays to her peers that she’s to head to the coast to visit her father Miguel Ángel García Mazziotti (Jorge Denevi), a well known gay showbiz figure who lives in a huge house on the beach. Veronica is seen chatting about his huge abode to her workmates, but after arriving at the coastal property in the idyllic Punta del Este, soon learns that he doesn’t live there any more. The owners of the luxurious pad redirect Virginia to the downtown are of the city where she eventually finds her father being accompanied home drunk to a very small apartment by a young ‘man of the night’. With a ominous gift in her possession, the young woman knocks on the door, only to be greeted by the young male prostitute.
Dolphins Go East review
Virginia is greeted into her father’s home to a mess of a living room, alcohol and rubbished littered everywhere, and hardcore pornography playing on loop on the television. He father has fallen asleep, clearly comatose from the amount of alcohol consumed, and the young rent boy wants paying – something she immediately addresses by raiding her father’s wallet.
The following morning, Miguel finally awakes to find his daughter in his apartment, which is now completely clean and free of them mess left from the previous evening’s entertainment. Miguel is clearly perturbed by his daughter’s presence and immediately wants her gone – only Virginia has some news of her own for her father – she is expecting his first grandchild. Only after learning this news does Miguel agree to let Virginia spend the weekend with him and what follows is a journey into two lost soles to becoming reacquainted with one, and indeed themselves once again.
Related: Zeus review (Transilvania 2017)
There’s a lot going on in this fairly light-hearted comedy about family values, family dynamics and false pretences, and indeed a lot to enjoy. Sometimes as dark in tone as it is light, the film manages to balance both wonderfully, the directors, screenwriters and actors creating a very pleasing product that manages to hold your attention throughout.
Verónica Perrota is excellent as Virginia, the lead female role perfectly suited to the all-rounder who plays opposite co-director Gonzalo Delgado. It’s Perrota’s debut feature, and only Delgado’s second (his first being released all of the way back in 1994), though this is a solid turn for both and I enjoyed the majority of it. Jorge Denevi is perhaps the big stand-out as the eccentric Miguel, a man clearly striving to protect his status to those around him and in particular to his daughter, even if that means making their relationship suffer in the process.
Dolphins Go East review
Running at a fairly short 83 minutes, the comedy-drama still manages to pack a lot in but may have benefited with being just that little bit longer to flesh out some of the weaker aspects – notably the issues between Virginia and husband Dario (played by Delgado) that are touched upon but never massively explored. It does handle most of the narrative well though and the light tone holds throughout. It manages to tackle difficult subjects but still bring on the funnies through those many solid performances.
There are clear similarities to the likes of Toni Erdmann, which was premiered at Cannes after this film’s initial debut, but while it runs at half the time it’s far from half the movie in terms of quality. As it stands, it’s a quality comedic drama with something we can all take away, even if its the just the running theme of perfection that we all seem to strive to create in the eyes of those who are closest to us, and those wretched social profiles that mean so much to us.
Dolphins Go East review by Paul Heath, June 2017.
Dophins Go East (aka Las toninas van al Este) was screened and reviewed at the 2017 Transilvania International Film Festival.
