It seems highly unlikely that Rico’s mother Andrea (Yohanna Florentino) will get her wish upon blowing out the birthday candles in “Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo),” asking only for “love and tranquility” in the apartment that they share, along with her 15-year-old daughter Sally (Nathaly Navarro). Shouting at one another is simply part of the ambiance in the humble flat in the Bronx where Andrea rarely can be around, perpetually clad in nurse’s scrubs and the price of keeping a roof over everyone’s head has been a little more chaos at home than at work when the kids have probably been allowed to get away with a little too much. Still, she raised them right when Rico and Sally can stop their squabbling as instantly as they can start up and haul out the cake.
This all happens just a few minutes into Joel Alfonso Vargas’ phenomenal first feature where all you need to know about anyone exists entirely within the frame, unfolding in carefully composed stationary shots where any feeling of pretension is undone immediately by how real everything else feels in the world the writer/director so richly evokes and a wicked sense of humor. Andrea isn’t the main character of “Mad Bills,” but she could be with the amount of attention paid to her in her limited role. Instead, Vargas trains his lens on the hapless Rico (Juan Collado), who spends his days on the beach hawking mixed drinks for around $10 a piece or 3 for $25, mistaking it for a proper job in paradise when the hustle really appears only to be headed nowhere fast.
With a loopy logic reminiscent of early Elaine May in “The Heartbreak Kid” and “A New Leaf,” “Mad Bills to Pay” doesn’t reinvent the wheel when Ricardo unexpectedly has responsibility thrust upon him, but it does put a different spin on it when a little more self-doubt could be a good thing rather than less. Learning that he’s about to be a first-time father, he isn’t only pressed to think about the future, but more immediately obliged to ask his mother to take in Destiny (Destiny Checo), the soon-to-be mother of his child, and while there are obvious concerns raised by all this, particularly when Destiny is three years younger than Ricardo is, the film wisely lingers less on the well-understood matters of how this might look to anyone else than how Rico and Destiny start to see themselves, facing their first real test as adults.
Attitude counts for quite a bit in “Mad Bills to Pay” where Rico wears others down with his bravado even when they know slinging drinks isn’t the start of a business empire — and the threat of buying into his own hype looms large. While Rico inevitably learns he won’t be able to get by on charm alone, Vargas gets the full benefit of his bluster, seeing through all of it for laughs at first, but gradually observing how it serves as a relatively thin veil of protection that starts getting pierced again and again by even the mildest of questions from anyone in his family. Collado, Florentino, Navarro and Checo are all spectacular in their respective roles, convincing as characters not easily pushed around, but each with soft spots that only one another know about that they can use to get what they want and when conscious of those pressure points for both those on screen and off, Vargas is the one who leaves ‘em wanting more with a magnificent debut.
“Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)” does not yet have U.S. distribution. It will next play at Berlinale on February 17th at 9:30 pm at the Stage Bluemax Theater, February 18th at 4 pm at Cubix 9, February 19th at 5:30 pm at Wolf Kino and 6:30 pm at Cubix 8 and February 21st at 12:30 pm at Colosseum 1.