Planta permanente

Well filmed and acted Argentine-Uruguayan film on two janitors who are friends (with ups and downs) and partners in the canteen of a public office. When neo-liberal management comes, everything becomes harder. While it is a good portrait of neo-liberal effect on workers and its shallow cynical speech, I think the script has nice elements but is a little tepid, and lacked something, particularly in the very end.

Lila and Marcela (Liliana Juárez and Rosario Bléfari, in her last film role) are old friends and have been working for years as cleaning personnel in a provincial Public Works Department. Also a long time ago and as I searched, both run a dining room in an unoccupied sector of the building to which most of the employees willingly attend. The arrival of a new Director (Verónica Perrota), who recalls the speech and the ways of a recent and prominent governor, calls into question the job security of the staff and the continuity of the dining room.

What is disturbing about this film by Ezequiel Radusky is the chronicle of how the variation of the status quo takes the unexpected path of undermining the relationship of both friends and partners. On the other hand, the movements of Lila (a true entrepreneur) to preserve or reconvert her irregular "undertaking" against all odds are moving. Impossible not to love her after the remarkable performance of Liliana Juárez, winner of the award for best actress for this role at the last Mar del Plata Film Festival.

The harshness of some situations are resolved with the best resource: humor, in an arduous film in several senses.

In short, a film that presents us with the centrality of work (in situations that are not exclusive to public employment) and its impact on ties and to what extent individual resistance to power and adverse changes is a possible path or a trap.