Victor Tellez is a movie critic writing for a Buenos Aires newspaper of wide circulation. He is so much into Nouvelle Vague movies that we hear him thinking in French and using movie lines in conversation. Thinking in French in Argentina is not an unusual phenomenon; many 20th century intellectuals like Victoria Ocampo thought in French and then translated (sometimes clumsily) to their native language like Tolstoi's Russian aristocrats a century earlier.
The first half of the movie shows Tellez doing his thing rather pathetically. He is divorced and looking unsuccessfully for a partner and lives in a dark borrowed flat where construction noises are constantly present. He is the very model of a destructive (or rather unfeeling) critic. Although his reviews are altered at will by the newspaper's editor, Tellez believes in his mission of teaching the public to distinguish between good and bad in movies, and we witness an unintended (and devastating) consequence of his pedantry. Obviously, he eschews sentimentality and romanticism as "vulgar."
In the second half, life bursts into Tellez's universe, and I believe the director's intention here is to compare movie scripts and real life. Scripts (especially Nouvelle vague scripts) are usually rich in explaining character's actions (e.g. the obtrusive narrator in Truffaut movies). Tellez himself is writing a movie script and he is repeatedly requested to clarify the intentions and motivations of his characters. Real life situations, however, are usually a lot less clean cut, motivations (including one's own) are obscure or entirely unknown, intentions are equally elusive, meaningless coincidences happen, and sentimentality, romanticism and vulgarity rear their heads in unexpected places.
The script by director Hernán Gerschuny is subtle, witty and low key; as in any superior movie, the message (if any) is not overly explicit and left to the viewer. Gerschuny's direction is flawless, and he is supported by a cast of uniformly excellent actors, beginning with Rafael Spregelburd and Dolores Fonzi. Production values are at the same level. This is Gerschuny's first feature movie. His second (Una Noche de Amor, 2016) is also a must watch. I am looking forward to his future work.
