I am a sucker for a Gael Garcia Bernal film and this romantic comedy was exactly what I needed to watch. The film was shown as part of the Raindance Film Festival, which I had hoped to see more at but I was rather limited by time and work, which is such a shame as there were so many great films, but if I could only pick one I'm so glad I got to see 'You're Killing Me Susana'.
In Mexico City, Eligio, an actor stuck working on a soap opera, goes out drinking til late with his friends and screws around with the make up artist on his show, while his wife Susana, teacher and aspiring writer is losing her patience with her husband. One day Eligio wakes up to find that Susana has left, disappeared. He searches everywhere for clues for days, while Susana moves on with her life. Eventually he find out she's in Iowa, USA and immediately quits his job and sells his car to buy a flight to see his wife. Susana won a grant to a writers workshop and decided this is what she wanted and fed up with Eligio's behaviour thought that he'd forget about her. What follows is a mixture of culture clash, romantic and comedic moments as well as bitter realisation and more than one heartfelt reunion.
The clash of many cultures is felt and even uncomfortable at times. Particularly when everyone keeps calling Eligio 'that Mexican'. He's first treated with suspicion at the airport when he arrives in the US and then ends a taxi journey with a racist driver by skipping out on the fair. He makes friends with Susana's Spanish speaking classmates who continously say 'aw you Mexican man'. He is seen as someone new and exciting by one of the American classmates who flirts with him even though she knows he's married. Eligio's experience at the University with Susana comments on people's discrimnations as well as showing clashes aren't always obvious, particularly, between Eligio and Susana's Polish classmate she has been sleeping with. Speaking of Slawormir, the Polish poet, he doesn't say one word throughout the film, he just looms uncomfortably in various scenes. Compared to the loud, social and passionate Eligio, Slawormir is a cold fish, but it is obvious, even before Susana confirms this, that she was only attracted to him, she doesn't go into detail about much else.
Moving on.
Having the bulk of the film set in USA, a place completely out of Eligio and Susana's comfort zones automatically made the couple closer. Despite their past (and future) mistakes, they have a close bond and do love each other, even though Susana doesn't say it out loud until the end unlike Eligio who says it all the time. Eligio and Susana, Gael Garcia Bernal and Spannish actress Verónica Echegui make a perfect pair. The chemistry between the two no matter what the scene is brilliant. Switching from hopelessly romantic one moment to tragic the next, they are passionate pair.
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