The simmering tensions between the rich and the poor have been well-documented in film but director Franco Lolli leaves the usual vitriol and rancour at the door. This is a more subtle approach to the gulf between the two worlds, so delicate in fact it’s hard to get a grasp on what the film is trying to say.
Ten-year-old Eric (Santamaria) is getting in with the wrong crowd and so his mother sends him to live in a rented room with his dad (Perez), a kind man eking out a living as a handyman. Dad is pitied by Maria Isabel (Rivas), a rich woman who goes out of her way to find oddjobs for him to do; she even forces her son to play with Eric and to hand over some clothes he doesn’t wear anymore. Knowing he’s dreading an upcoming downtime in work, Maria Isabel invites dad and son to her friends’ lavish country house where dad can work as the ground’s handyman. Soon dad becomes increasingly uncomfortable with this ‘charity’ and decides to make his own way back to the city, leaving Eric in hands of his rich benefactor.
A similar situation emerges in The Good Lie, also out this week. But where the three Sudanese immigrants in that drama are so grateful for the kindness the Americans (Reese Witherspoon and co) have shown them it can feel like their dialogue is made up of thank yous, Gente de Bien doesn’t go down the doormat route, striking that balance of an ungrateful child and one understandably acting out. Eric is a ten-year-old kid doing his best to get a handle on his parents’ separation, why this rich lady has taken an interest, and how his dad came to leave him with strangers.
One important scene has Eric, upset that his rich new friends have isolated him and missing his father, retreat to the corner of the room, his back turned to the party. Isabel makes him a sandwich, urges him to turn around, and Eric just snaps that he wants to be alone. But she annoyingly persists and eventually he has to kick out and knocks the sandwich out of her hand. Isabel’s reaction, and the reaction of her rich friends, is that of vindication – the boy is poor and so wild and unappreciative.
But this scene is well into the last act, when Gente de Bien finally gets down to the business of drama, which eventually leads to a cheap way to pull some sort of feeling from the film. It’s as if Lolli panics that the gentle and unassuming tone won’t garner much of a reaction and moves to give the viewer a little something. But that he comes up with is too easy and too little too late.