A sensitive, funny and beautifully made ode to resilience and resourcefulness, Fernando Léon de Aranoa's dramatic comedy signals its unique sensibility right from the beginning--a night-time scene of immigrants scrambling down a hill to avoid being caught after stealing flowers that they hope to sell on the streets of Madrid. It is at once poetic and a bit sad, but it speaks to the immigrant's urge to not only survive, but succeed in new and unfamiliar circumstances.
One of the men scrambling down that hill, Nelson (Pietro Sibille), is the boyfriend of Marcela (Magaly Solier). Marcela is at the end of her rope, and when the fridge in her and Nelson's tiny apartment finally gives out, she's really had it. She would leave--if she wasn't pregnant, something Nelson is unaware of. Desperately in need of a new fridge--not, as you may think, to keep food, but to keep the flowers fresh--Marcela takes a job as nurse/aid to the bedridden Amador (Celso Bugallo), a curmudgeon with a heart. As their relationship begins to grow, Amador suddenly dies--causing Marcela to hatch a cunning plan to keep her job.
Nimbly steering his own script between black comedy and social critique (while adding the occasional frisson of farce), de Aranoa accomplishes a rare thing: he's made a genuinely entertaining movie that also makes you think.