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THE METHOD
Directed by: Marcelo Piñeyro.
Produced by: Gerardo Herrero & Francisco Ramos.
Written by: Mateo Gil & Piñeyro, based on the play The Grönholm Method by Jordi Galcerán Ferrer.
Director of Photography by: Alfredo F. Mayo. Edited by: Iván Aledo.
Music by: Frédéric Bégin & Phil Electric.
Released by: Palm Pictures.
Country of Origin: Spain/Argentina/Italy. 115 min. Not Rated.
With: Eduardo Noriega, Najwa Nimri, Eduard Fernández, Pablo Echarri, Ernesto Alterio, Natalia Verbeke, Adriana Ozores & Carmelo Gómez.

The Method is less a psychological probe than a sort of contrived sociological mind game, with a group of seven, all applicants for the same job, secluded together in a conference room. There’s a selection process at work, dubbed the Grönholm experiment, where the company poses challenges to weed out a candidate one by one – until only one’s left.

There’s at least a couple of twists (is there a mole?), some small-to-large revelations about the white-collar characters, and some striking and well-acted moments. Co-writer Mateo Gil has credits like Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos, the original version of Vanilla Sky) and The Sea Inside. But aside from one big instance, or rather blunder, when director Marcelo Piñeyro tries to make the film cinematic through an opening sequence of maddening split-screen images, the dark comedy’s shot like a slick television episode. 12 Angry Men in Spanish, one might wonder? It isn’t.

Yet the actors do try to bring some life to material that waxes and wanes in interest as a brutal game of wits. Carlos (Eduardo Noriega), a yuppie, had a previous fling with one of the other contestants – sorry, applicants – strong and sexy Nieves (Najwa Nimri), and the two exhibit themselves clearly (too obviously perhaps) as the front-runners for the unnamed position. They’re competing against macho horn dog Fernando (Eduard Fernández), nervous and stammering Ricardo (Pablo Echarri), to name two, with a company secretary Montse (Natalia Verbeke) acting sort of like the host. The cast stays true to their roles, even in duller moments early on during the first tests where the intended intensity is displaced by the dull naturalistic dialog (yes, we get it, they’re businesspeople, get on with it already).

It’s unfortunate that The Method is a mixed bag, because it does have an intriguing premise. On the other hand, we get the contrite symbolism of anti-globalization protesters raging in the streets while the experiment is going on many floors up in a high rise. This serves no purpose to the story except for one revelation regarding one applicant’s union sympathies and in the pretentious final shot of a woman walking through a street of debris. Little touches do make it watchable, though, like the music, fluttery Muzak that plays in between the testing sessions, sounding like elevator music, but with a tinge of the abstract to it.

DVD Extras: Aside from a trailer, there’s only a making-of featurette, which mostly includes the actors’ own ideas about what the Grönholm experiment might actually be, and an interview with the director and producers about the luck in casting so many well-revered Hispanic actors. Jack Gattanella
August 17, 2007