PERFECT CRIME (EL CRIMEN PERFECTO)
Directed by: Álex de la Iglesia.
Produced by: Gustavo Ferrada, Álex de la Iglesia, Juanma Pagazaurtundua & Roberto di Girolamo.
Written by: Jorge Guerricaechevarría & Álex de la Iglesia.
Director of Photography: José L. Moreno.
Edited by: Alejandro Lázaro.
Music by: Roque Baños.
Released by: Vitagraph.
Language: Spanish with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: Spain. 105 min. Not Rated.
With: Guillermo Toledo, Mónica Cervera & Luis Valera.

Rafael is the perfect department store salesman: charming, eloquent, and self-assured. A macho ladies’ man, he has the expected after-hour liaisons with his thin, pretty co-workers, and the two-man entourage that admires and envies him in equal measure. But he’s blindsided when he not only loses the floor manager promotion to his archenemy - a narrow-minded and resentful older man, Don Antonio (Luis Valera) - but also gets fired by him. A fight ensues between the two men, and Don Antonio dies accidentally. With the help of the only saleswoman he has not slept with – the ugly one – Rafael commits what seems like the perfect crime. And then his real nightmare begins.

The plot is predictable, especially at the beginning, filled with tiresome clichés. But once Don Antonio dies and the plot thickens, the clichés are given a new life by the accomplished performances by Guillermo Toledo (Rafael), Mónica Cervera (Lourdes, the ugly saleswoman) and the rest of the cast in this absurd, macabre comedy.

Cervera is especially good as the ugly woman in love with Rafael. She acquires a new and unimagined power after helping him depose of Don Antonio. The joy and satisfaction of punishing the world and finally getting what she wants is plainly written in her walk and vividly expressive face.

Behind the mockery of the self-assured dandy at the mercy of an ugly woman, there is real hopelessness. When Rafael meets Lourdes’ family, he sees himself in her father, a man who sleeps all day long and is more like a plant than a person.

Perfect Crime eventually becomes suspenseful, with a funny, but also bittersweet ending. Throughout, the music underlines the silliness of the plot and the film's mocking tone. All in all, a black comedy that, in spite of a few clichés, actually makes the audience laugh, even if sometimes the laughter is mixed with pity, exasperation or a bit of disdain. Roxana M. Ramirez
August 19, 2044