Eight years after their raunchy Art-house smash Y Tu Mamá También, Gael García Bernal (see interview, page 2) and Diego Luna, together with the writer Carlos Cuarón, team up again for another sweetly seductive demolition of the Mexican Dream. Not a sequel but certainly a companion piece, Rudo y Cursi bristles with a familiar mix of fraternal rivalry, social commentary and knockabout humour. This time Luna and Bernal are, respectively, Beto and Tato, bickering half-brothers and skilled footballers from a banana plantation, who harbour hopes of faraway lives in Mexico City, the US and beyond. Fate arrives in the form of a sports agent, Batuta (Guillermo Francella), a fast-talking huckster who spots our heroes in action (Beto is a goalie, Tato a striker) on the local dirt pitch. Batuta duly recruits these fleet-footed naifs for one heady season of excess in the big-city leagues, where they will gain the world and, perhaps, lose their souls.

The audience-pleasing hook is that the movie is not just a satirical morality tale but a robust fish-out-of-water comedy. Yes, it depicts the morally deleterious effects of sudden wealth and decadent living on Beto and Tato, now called by their soccer superstar names, Rudo and Cursi (literal translation Rough and Vulgar). But it does so with wickedly funny intent. Bernal’s Cursi, in particular, the target of much mirth, is transformed by success into a vainglorious Beckham/Ronaldo hybrid, complete with a twig-thin trophy girlfriend (Jessica Mas), a yellow Hummer, Nike headband and mass-media ambitions (he records a kitsch pop promo, David Brent style, for his country cover version of Cheap Trick’s I Want You to Want Me). From the moment he sashays into his faux-marble city pad and coos excitedly over the new white 4x4 parked in the yard, you just know that his downfall is assured.

Thankfully, the movie resists the pull of sombre didacticism that scuppered the similar Latin football-themed melodrama Linha de Passe (directed by the Brazilian favourite Walter Salles). Instead, Cuarón’s film, like También before it, mostly trades on the easygoing chemistry between Luna and Bernal and the sunny mood that it engenders. In fact, at times Rudo y Cursi feels almost too whimsical and too charming for its own good.

And there’s the rub. For delivering its satire with a smile instead of a sneer, Rudo y Cursi is a funnier, warmer comedy. But is it a better film?

15, 101mins

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