Plot: eclectic group of urbanites is locked into a studio during a TV gala.
Álex de la Iglesia has never released a truly bad film. While there are peaks and valleys in his filmography de la Iglesia is a master technician who knows exactly what he’s doing. What has become clear over the past couple of years is that Blanca Suárez is his new muse, and has rekindled his creativity. Not that everything that de la Iglesia commits to celluloid is an instant (or guaranteed) hit at the box office. Mi Gran Noche (My Big Night internationally) takes its title from the 1967 hit single and 2013 triple CD+DVD compilation Mi Gran Noche (50 Éxitos De Mi Vida) from headlining star Raphael and is a celebration of his impressive life and career (albeit infused with a bit of fiction). It was presented at the 2015 San Sebastián Film Festival but neither was apparently enough to get the necessary draw at the cineplexes. Which is perplexing because with a few minor cuts this is the stuff that usually does well on the Asian and Indian markets.
After his Hollywood bid The Oxford Murders (2008) failed to establish him in the English-speaking world and the gothic horror throwback Witching and Bitching (2013) didn’t do much to catapult Spanish horror back into the mainstream Álex de la Iglesia returned to his old stomping grounds of the comedy. Since the limited series Plutón B.R.B. Nero (2008-2009) de la Iglesia has surrounded himself with an assembly of new talent, both young and old, while alternating between drama, comedy, and the occassional horror. As Luck Would Have It (2011) and Perfect Strangers (2017), the 2016 Italian original was inscribed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being adapted no less than 18 (!!) times, as of this writing, across the world in countries including but not limited to Turkey, Mexico, South Korea, France, Hungary, Armenia, Greece, Vietnam, China, and Russia. A rebel at heart Álex de la Iglesia is at his best when he can lay fire at the establishment and its institutions. Filmed from late February until mid-April 2015 on an estimated budget of 4 million euro (and recouping 2,6 million of that at the box office) My Big Night sees Álex de la Iglesia satirizing celebrity culture, tabloid journalism, as well as the plasticity and manufactured nature of populist entertainment. To be more specific, it offers a damning critique of how heavily-scripted televised entertainment is a product, a medium to convey, confirm and perpetuate a certain narrative, agenda, or ideology. In other words, this is a black comedy harkening to the days of Common Wealth (2000).
Blanca Suárez follows in the footsteps of Maria Grazia Cucinotta and Macarena Gómez and is, for all intents and purposes, de la Iglesia’s latest muse. It’s easy to see why too. Suárez looks absolutely ravishing and with appearances in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In (2011), as well as the Platino Award-winning series Cable Girls (2017-2020) and Jaguar (2021-) she could very well be on the verge of an international breakthrough. No wonder then that he would cast her again in The Bar (2017) just two years later. Ana Polvorosa, Mario Casas, and Hugo Silva all were in Sex, Party and Lies (2009) and Polvorosa would go on to star alongside Suárez in Cable Girls (2017-2020). Enrique Villén, Carmen Machi and Carmen Ruiz have been with him for over a decade by this point. Compared to them Mario Casas, Pepón Nieto and Jaime Ordóñez are relatively new additions. The prerequiste monument here is Terele Pávez. Pávez first drew attention some 56 years prior with the romantic comedy We Are Eighteen Years Old (1959). This wouldn’t be all that special or noteworthy under any of the usual circumstances, except that it was the debut of none other than infamous enfant terrible and future prolific one-man exploitation factory Jesús Franco. Pávez has been with de la Iglesia since his breakthrough with The Day of the Beast (1995) and the wonderful Common Wealth (2000) as has Santiago Segura – and it’s great to see him be so respectful as to always write a role or two with them in mind. Pávez would pass away in 2017, aged 78, after an impressive six-and-a-half decade career. Also present are producer Carolina Bang and crooner Raphael as a fictionalized version of himself.
October, 2015. At the studios of Mediafrost TV it’s all hands on deck for crew and technicians as filming for the 2016 New Year’s Eve gala drags on into its second week. When an unfortunate on-set accident kills one of the extras the ETT summons chronically unemployed José Díaz Martiño (Pepón Nieto) at the last minute to the industrial pavilion on the outskirts of Madrid where the gala is being recorded. There he’s hurried to table 21 by stage manager Paco (Luis Callejo) and seated with seasoned extras Yanire (Ana Polvorosa), her boyfriend Josua (Luis Fernández), and playboy Antonio (Antonio Velázquez). While exchanging the usual formalities who catches his eye is beautiful Paloma (Blanca Suárez), an affluent socialite everybody believes is jinxed. José is supposed to watch his retired and superstitious septuagenarian mother Dolores Martiño Sepúlveda (Terele Pávez) as his high-strung sister María (Toni Acosta) is on the way to Disneyland in Paris, France for a vacation with her kids. Complications arise when Dolores torches his sister’s apartment and a municipal police officer (Daniel Guzmán) drops her off at the studio. At another tabe sits grifter Soriano (Enrique Villén) and he's in cahoots with Romanian thug Luca (Filip Bulgary) to pull off a daring extortion racket on one of the show’s young stars. Meanwhile outside angry demonstrators violently protest the studio’s recent management decisions.
Behind the scenes things aren’t much better. Producer José Luis Benítez Quintana (Santiago Segura) has to keep things moving according to plan and constantly deal with everybody’s fragile egoes. Hanging as a sword of Damocles above him is the imminent termination of 500 employees to keep the channel profitable. Hosts Roberto (Hugo Silva) and Cristina (Carolina Bang) are married and when they’re not at each other’s throat (sometimes literally) they’re actively sabotaging each other’s career. Caught in the middle of the domestic dispute is their writer (Ignatius Farray). Aging crooner Alphonso (Raphael) has stipulated that he will only perform as the headliner. Alphonso’s embattled Russian personal assistant, publicist, and attorney Yuri (Carlos Areces) has had enough of the decades of thankless abuse and plans to get even with his employer. For that purpose he has hired Óscar García (Jaime Ordóñez) who will kill Alphonso during the show’s climactic finale. What he doesn’t know is that Óscar García (is de la Iglesia a vintage Terrorizer fan?) an Alphonso superfan. Standing in the shadow of Alphonso is blonde chiseled Latin music star Adanne (Mario Casas). The beefcake heartthrob is the victim of groupies Lourdes (Marta Castellote) and Sofía (Marta Guerras), unaware that they are recruits in Soriano’s extortion scheme. Adanne’s unscrupulous handler Perotti (Tomás Pozzi) is desperately trying to contain the situation. In the exterior production control room mobile unit master control operators and “hysterical lesbians” Rosa (Carmen Machi) and Amparo (Carmen Ruiz) try to cut the best footage from a chaotic production while dealing with personal problems. As the night drags on things come to a violent head during the gala’s epic finale.
With Álex de la Iglesia growing up with the classic Iberian fantaterror and the decades worth of exploitation that his country had spawned the first thing that My Big Night flashes after the musical opening number is a pair of big bouncing naked breasts. That being out of the way you know exactly what you’re in for. About half an hour in Nieto and Suárez start comparing scars in a vignette that’s as childlishly funny as it is innocent. Well, any and all excuse is good to have Suárez showing off her thong. Here it’s that and in The Bar (2017) he and writer Jorge Guerricaechevarría invented a scene that required her to strip down to her lingerie. How we suffer for our art. When it’s not Suárez glancing seductively de la Iglesia points his camera at the Martas, Castellote and Guerras. We probably missed a ton of references, but it’s always fun to have Julio and Enrique Iglesias, horror director José Luis Merino, and Marie José Cantudo casually mentioned in passing. As with much of his post-Common Wealth (2000) repertoire there are references to Star Wars (1977) and the bit with the circular blade is the closest de la Iglesia has come to re-enacting the drillbit scene from Lucio Fulci’s City Of the Living Dead (1980). Adanne is a parody of Puerto Rican singer Chayanne and the song 'Bombero' (a riff on his 2002 hit 'Torero') more than a few times reminds of ‘Dard – E – Disco’ from the Farah Khan-Shah Rukh Khan hit romantic comedy Om Shanti Om (2008). Not only does it feature similar production design it oozes with the same garish Bollywood excess. Sadly there’s no ‘Deewangi Deewangi’ equivalent, but it’s the sentiment that counts. It sort of makes you long for de la Iglesia doing a The Dirty Picture (2011) take on Spain’s Cine-S star Andrea Albani. Not that this ever reaches the levels of self-awareness of that or, say, Om Shanti Om (2008), but as a general swipe at television and mass entertainment you could do far, far worse.
When My Big Night failed to perform as expected at the box office de la Iglesia and Jorge Guerricaechevarría almost immediately went back to the drawingboard. Was it always the plan for My Big Night to set up The Bar (2017), was one just the natural result of the other, or was the second a mere economic necessity to recoup the losses? Who knows… What is perhaps most telling is that Luis Fernández’ Josua at one point flat out states the central premise to The Bar (2017) in what otherwise would be considered a throwaway line. Either way de la Iglesia was able to retain all principal players (Suárez, Casas, Ordóñez, Machi, and Pávez) and in record time penned a screenplay that felt like a much more serious and darker take on what was done here. My Big Night and The Bar (2017) are two sides of the same coin, two interpretations of the same idea, and thus thematic companion pieces featuring the same leads. Hardly the worst idea on part of Álex de la Iglesia and writer Jorge Guerricaechevarría as a main cast this talented couldn’t possibly let go to waste that easily. Blanca Suárez certainly has reignited the fires of creativity for Álex de la Iglesia and he would be out of his mind not to utilize the prestige and marquee value she brings to a project to the fullest possible extent. Here’s hoping that the next de la Iglesia-Suárez feature is even bigger and better.