'A Perfect Day' Shows Us The Absurdities Of War (And Utility Of Rope)
By Joel Wicklund in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 20, 2016 10:09PM
Olga Kurylenko, Tim Robbins, Melanie Thierry and Benicio Del Toro in "A Perfect Day." (Photo: Fernando Marrero/IFC Films.)
Movies often pair depictions of war and gallows humor, with effects ranging from broad comic brilliance (Dr. Strangelove) to more realistic dramedies (M*A*S*H and Three Kings). Entertaining and politically potent, A Perfect Day is part of that lineage, putting humanitarian aid workers at the forefront this time.
Benicio Del Toro (continuing his recent hot streak of strong roles in Sicario, Inherent Vice and the little-seen Escobar: Paradise Lost) stars as Mambrú, an aid worker in the Balkans in the mid-1990s. World weary and exhausted, he's ready to go home. Yet he's still in charge of a small crew that includes big-hearted but unstable "B" (Tim Robbins) and idealistic rookie Sophie (Mélanie Thierry from The Princess of Montpensier).
The movie opens with a fantastic credits sequence where an obese corpse is hoisted from a well with a piece of rope. This corpse turns out to be the aid workers' central problem. The dead man, a victim of military retribution, is polluting the precious water supply in a poor village. The longer his body festers in the well, the less chance the aid workers have to properly clean the water so it's safe to drink. When the rope lifting the corpse breaks, the crew finds they don't have enough rope in their truck to continue the job.
What should be a simple task—finding more rope—proves to be anything but, as Mambrú's crew is forced to negotiate with army officials, bureaucrats and war criminals for this most basic supply. Personal tensions among the crew complicate the process, especially when Katya (Olga Kurylenko of Quantum of Solace), a conflict evaluator who had a fling with Mambrú, shows up.
Writer-director Fernando León de Aranoa makes his English language debut with A Perfect Day, and he artfully balances lively enterainment with caustic commentary. León de Aranoa gave Javier Bardem one of his best roles in 2002's Mondays in the Sun, a comedy-tinged drama about unemployed dock workers. As in that film, his new feature shows a real feel for working people and the absurdities they face when up against institutional dysfunction.
Del Toro puts his charisma to good use reacting to those absurdities, showing Mambrú's slowly mounting frustration without overacting. Robbins provides steady comic relief as the loose cannon coworker. Thierry and Kurylenko are stuck in less interesting roles, but both actresses make the most of them.
When Robert Altman's M*A*S*H came out in 1970, it was the third highest-grossing film of the year. In 1999, David O. Russell's Three Kings was a modest mainstream hit. Both films were financed by major U.S. studios and enjoyed nationwide releases. By contrast, A Perfect Day comes to us from boutique distributor IFC films, in a very limited release. In cinema today, social consciousness can limit even a relatively comic movie's profile. You could say the force has awakened to more dependable box office fare.
A Perfect Day. Directed by Fernando León de Aranoa. Screenplay by León de Aranoa and Diego Farias, based on a novel by Paula Farias. Starring Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins, Melanie Thierry and Olga Kurylenko. Rated R. 106 mins.
Opens Friday, Jan. 22 at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Also currently available through multiple video-on-demand services.