Long faced Argentinean comedian Diego Peretti is not as much at home here as he is in some of his superior star vehicles. He's not the best choice for a Robin Williams part and this film never recovers the promise of the opening where Diego addresses the camera, walking in the middle of flaming chaos on the beach. "The rabbit's burning and drowning."
Family man Diego is just hanging on at the Hypermarket where he's been in charge of human relations for fifteen years.
At home he finds that dissatisfied wife, the always watchable Carla Peterson who gave up her lawyer career to raise the family, has booked herself a holiday at Machu Picchu leaving him in charge of the bratty teenagers and destructive tinies. "Didn't you say you wanted to be in my place?" she asks him and draws a wall chart of parental responsibilities. Yes, it's going to be MR. MUM or actually another entry in that cycle going back at least as far as Clive Brook in 1925's THE HOME MAKER.
Things immediately go pear shaped when Diego finds that the school is closed for a training day, something he learns about from the raddled teacher who claims she looked like a super model before she started, and he then backs the car over his limping housekeeper. Diego realises he's brought the wrong kid home from soccer practice and can't understand the baby who insists on painting on the kitchen wall. His family togetherness project paper balloon blows into the house and starts a fire and, when he locks his keys inside and the rogue washing machine fills the stairs with menacing suds advancing on the baby, the pre-teener starts smashing windows to be helpful.
Relief does arrive in the form of super-competent hired help Pilar Gamboa who however turns out to be a girl Diego dismissed to impress the Hypermart board. Sensing the tension, daughter Agustina Cabo warns Peretti "If you fire Julia, I will learn to drive and run you over."
Cabo's a rural single mother sacked from a string of jobs who comments "I've gotten tired of no future." The financial crisis, which figures regularly in South American films, is never mentioned but lies under this picture of suburban prosperity.
Events climax on the company's Family Day and with Diego falling behind his competitor in the sack race and other competitions. His only hope is the high points event getting inside the giant see-through ball and rolling down the hill into the inflatable bowling pins. This is not going to end well.
Class performers are not really served by a predictable script though it does run to a nice line in sadistic humor and keeps the awful situations coming, cutting to a speeding emergency service vehicles after each disaster. The film gives the impression of having been reduced from a more extended version with elements disappearing - like the gerbil last seen in the glass jug.
Nice Nahuel Moreno toon titles and best, bright low contrast colour filming.
Family man Diego is just hanging on at the Hypermarket where he's been in charge of human relations for fifteen years.
At home he finds that dissatisfied wife, the always watchable Carla Peterson who gave up her lawyer career to raise the family, has booked herself a holiday at Machu Picchu leaving him in charge of the bratty teenagers and destructive tinies. "Didn't you say you wanted to be in my place?" she asks him and draws a wall chart of parental responsibilities. Yes, it's going to be MR. MUM or actually another entry in that cycle going back at least as far as Clive Brook in 1925's THE HOME MAKER.
Things immediately go pear shaped when Diego finds that the school is closed for a training day, something he learns about from the raddled teacher who claims she looked like a super model before she started, and he then backs the car over his limping housekeeper. Diego realises he's brought the wrong kid home from soccer practice and can't understand the baby who insists on painting on the kitchen wall. His family togetherness project paper balloon blows into the house and starts a fire and, when he locks his keys inside and the rogue washing machine fills the stairs with menacing suds advancing on the baby, the pre-teener starts smashing windows to be helpful.
Relief does arrive in the form of super-competent hired help Pilar Gamboa who however turns out to be a girl Diego dismissed to impress the Hypermart board. Sensing the tension, daughter Agustina Cabo warns Peretti "If you fire Julia, I will learn to drive and run you over."
Cabo's a rural single mother sacked from a string of jobs who comments "I've gotten tired of no future." The financial crisis, which figures regularly in South American films, is never mentioned but lies under this picture of suburban prosperity.
Events climax on the company's Family Day and with Diego falling behind his competitor in the sack race and other competitions. His only hope is the high points event getting inside the giant see-through ball and rolling down the hill into the inflatable bowling pins. This is not going to end well.
Class performers are not really served by a predictable script though it does run to a nice line in sadistic humor and keeps the awful situations coming, cutting to a speeding emergency service vehicles after each disaster. The film gives the impression of having been reduced from a more extended version with elements disappearing - like the gerbil last seen in the glass jug.
Nice Nahuel Moreno toon titles and best, bright low contrast colour filming.
