Lo contrario al amor “The opposite of love” (Vicente Villanueva, 2011): Spain

Reviewed by Gustav Orvefors. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Lo contrario al amor “The opposite of love” is a story about a Merce (Adriana Ugarte),a young woman from Spain, who doesn’t believe in relationships. She despise love because she  don’t want herself to change, and she keeps her love-life unemotional. That is of course, before he came into the picture. Raúl (Hugo Silva), a fireman, who saves her from a broken elevator. He is tall, muscular, masculine and the complete opposite of Merce! If it was not for the Spanish (and sometimes) vulgar language, this could have been a medium budget Hollywood-movie.

Vicente Villanueva (director) have only before made short, and this is his first feature film. He does a good job, but there are some signs that tells he’s worked with shorts before, like how the scenes and the tempo of the movie are really fast. I look forward to see his future work, because I think he will be a great director.

There are allot to love about this film. Like the wonderful side story about two homosexual firemen, which can’t  accept their own sexuality. And of course the dramatic relationship that I think everyone can recognize themselves in. Even though the film have a great story “except for stupid tarot cards in the beginning, and the awful performance by the sister”, the film doesn’t come together for me.

When I watched “The opposite of love” I felt there where allot of small stories that are good individually, but when put together doesn’t really match up. The conversations are both quick and funny, and even though they are subtitled, they made the audience laugh, “which isn’t the easiest to do”.

The main story and moral of the film is to accept each others faults and to love the entire person for who he/she is. It seems a little bit cheesy, but “The opposite of love” does a great job keeping the originality, and the vision of an ineffective relationship is spot on. If I should tell the the genre of opposite of love I would have a problem. I would like to say it’s a common love-film, but then I realize it is so much more than that. The movie is about finding yourself, to accept yourself and also to accept others. It’s about the struggle to find someone perfect, and realize there is no perfect.