If the idea of Will Ferrell in a Spanish movie isn’t enough to pique one’s curiosity, how about an 84-minute spoof of Mexican drug cartels, soap operas, and foreign drama, all while breaking down the fourth wall between actor and audience?
Casa de Mi Padre is a film about dim-witted rancher Armando (Ferrell) and his brother Raul (Diego Luna), who is clearly their father’s favouriteson. When Raul comes home to present his fiancé, Sonia (Génesis Rodríguez), Armando soon finds out that Raul is a drug dealer who is involved in a major territorial dispute with a Mexican drug gang, headed by the powerful drug lord Onza (GaelGarcía Bernal).
The film opens up with a vivacious musical sequence featuring songstress Christina Aguilera, singing the film’s title song over the opening credits. The camera’s constant zooming in on her lips draws a clear connection with cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, in which its opening credits famously scroll over a pair of alluring lips singing the opening song. The film immediately begins by teasing the portrayal of Mexicans in popular culture with a scene in which Armando and his buddies ride their horses through wasteland, having what seems to be a very normal, dry conversation. And although English speakers would dismiss this conversation as small talk, the subtitles illuminate a discussion on how Armando isn’t as obsessed with women as he is with cattle. Were it not for the subtitles, one’s inability to understand the language might cause the viewer to take these conversations as flat and trivial, but they’re actually the same hilarious and absurd discussions that are classic elements of Will Ferrell films. The story feeds the audience with an exaggerated screenwriting style and the occasionally incomprehensible sentences that one comes to expect in Ferrell’s work, much like Ron Burgundy’s description of San Diego inAnchorman.
A unique aspect of this film is its awareness of the audience, most notably during a fight scene depicted entirely with a stuffed white tiger fighting a real coyote. Before the fighting ensues, the film cuts to a note written to the audience by the second camera assistant, who apologizes for cutting the scene for a variety of hilarious reasons.
In terms of performances, Luna and Bernal set aside their dramatic acting experience, playing comedic roles with just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek sarcasm that is necessary for their outlandish roles. As one of the few gringos in the film, Will Ferrell’s Spanish pronunciation is fantastic.
The writers understand the central purpose of the film: using Spanish-speaking actors to communicate various stereotypes to its English-speaking audience. The result is a unique and inventive comedy, but one might wonder what reaction Mexican audiences will have when the film opens there.
In the end, having an English-speaking audience pay to see a comedy that’s completely filmed in Spanish might seem slightly abnormal, but Will Ferrell demonstrates yet again that, if anybody is capable of making oddball concepts work, he possesses the comedic knack to make magic like this happen.
