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Synopsis

El Hijo de la Novia (2001) follows Rafael, a 42-year-old Buenos Aires man who has become disillusioned with his life. Though he initially disapproves when his father tells him he is going to finally give his mother, who is now suffering from Alzheimer’s, the white wedding she always wanted, a sudden heart attack makes him change his mind. This episode in his life causes him to reevaluate his commitments to his parents, his girlfriend, his daughter, and his work.

In 2001, the worst crisis in Argentina’s history since the start of the dictatorship in the 1970s took place. The economy had been in a severe decline since the late 90s thanks to Carlos Menem’s neoliberal policies and the Brazilian crisis of 1999. After years of borrowing, inflation, and devaluation, the situation became desperate in December 2001. That year, the government froze all USD bank accounts and restricted the withdrawal of money in ATMs to only 250 pesos per week due to a lack of monetary liquidity. On December 19, President Fernando de la Rúa declared a state of emergency, and twenty-four hours later, he fled the Casa Rosada and resigned. At the end of 2001, the unemployment rate was around 23%, and 40,000 companies shut their doors. At the same time that the Argentine people and government were living their worst nightmare, the cinematic industry was having one of their best years. La Ciénaga by Lucrecia Martel would soon be seen as one of the great Latin American films of the century and El Hijo de la Novia gained immediate critical and box office success. As Horacio González put it, “There is a ‘national cinema’ that is being produced, and that, in all the extension of its terms, is dealing with the story of the national dissolution.”

Released only a few months before the nation dissolved into chaos, El Hijo de la Novia found a way to look the dire problems of the present in the eye and not pretend they weren’t there but understand with eyes wide open that hope was not a depleted resource. Like many Argentines, Rafael is a man broken down by unfulfilled dreams who idealizes his past. The movie opens with a scene of Rafael as a child watching a group of young River Plate fans play. Masked like Zorro and wearing a Boca Juniors jersey, he heroically attacks them from atop a hill and then returns to his home where his loving mother gives him treats. It’s a memory that seems so distant from his bleak reality as a relatively joyless adult. How did he, and his own country stray so far from these idyllic roots where the good guys thwarted the bad guys and the only battles were on the field?

For Rafael, it is a problem of forgetting. Rafael forgets who he was and what he is capable of. When his friend from school, Juan Carlos, comes to his restaurant and pranks him by pretending to be a member of the vice squad, Rafael doesn’t even recognize him. He has forgotten an important figure in his youth and constantly forgets about the people in his life. He rarely remembers to pick up his own daughter. However, Rafael is not unique in this area as his own mother suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. This memory loss which plagues his family reflects the collective forgetfulness of a nation, still ill-prepared to confront the human rights abuses of the past. The only memory Rafael holds onto from his childhood is so idealized and stylized, it seems unreal. Was the past all that good? Probably not, but the uncertainty and criminality of contemporary life can make anyone nostalgic for days of control and repression.

The economic decadence and decay of the present day have prevented Rafael from taking the time to examine his unhealthy relationship with the past. Now running his father’s restaurant, he spends all day yelling on the phone and cursing Chase Manhattan. He sees no hope for his future or his country’s. When he is approached to sell the restaurant before the crisis becomes worse, he remarks, “When wasn’t there a crisis here? I mean… If it isn’t inflation, there is a recession, and if not, there is a recession with inflation. If it is not the IMF, it is the Popular Front… The point is that if it is not in the front, it is in the back, but there is always a stain on this house.” This disease has infected every part of public life in his country, sometimes to incredibly comedic effect. When caught speeding, he attempts to bribe the cop and soon finds out that his bills are fake. It becomes less funny, however, when you realize how much this mentality has encroached in even spiritual life after the priest hired for the wedding denies their request due to their lack of faith and the fact that marriage above all, is a contract. This clergyman could be a spokesman for the IMF.

Like many other Argentines, Rafael’s first solution to these problems is to “irse a la mierda” or “get the fuck out”. At the time of the crisis, the Spanish and Italian embassies were filled with citizens looking to find any way out of the country that seemed incapable of change. After suffering a near-fatal heart attack, Rafael comes to that same conclusion. His fantasy is simple but clear. He will sell the restaurant and go to Mexico. Nevertheless, these plans are hollow and selfish. Upon explaining his travel plans to his ex-wife, she dismisses them and says she will not send her daughter away to another country so that he can cure his midlife crisis. In her words, once he’s found himself, he can come back and meet his daughter. His plan to sell also culminates in a very unceremonious and dehumanizing meeting in a high rise where papers are signed but no one really looks at him or talks to him.

It takes a second hospitalization, this one brought on by a panic attack, to finally bring Rafael to his senses. Though he had previously been reticent to visit his mother after years of feeling guilt over not being a successful lawyer like she would have wanted, he decides to see her. This time instead of internally analyzing his own insecurities, he focuses on her. Unable to tell where and when she is, she starts to cry because her mother does not visit and she wonders if it is because she doesn’t love her. Rafael, dutifully, comforts her and in doing so, comforts himself. She may not remember the interaction tomorrow, but he won’t forget that the saintly woman of his past was not real and that the vulnerable woman sitting next to him is.

Rafael was previously plagued by nostalgia and now sees that the solution cannot be to give in to the decadence of the time or to stick your head in the sand. In this neoliberal wasteland, he can hang on to his family values. It’s not for nothing that his first meaningful father-daughter date in the movie takes place in a Burger King or that his final commitment promise and love confession he gives to his long-suffering girlfriend is done over an intercom. In this modern and isolated world, Rafael finds ways to connect. This all culminates in Rafael buying the restaurant across the street from his old one. He may have to fight against the chains but he no longer has to live in his father’s shadow. In the final scenes of the film, we see that Rafael, thanks to a clever lie carried out by his actor friend Juan Carlos, is able to pull off the white wedding for his mother. Maybe it’s not a real wedding with a real priest but it gets the job done. In direct opposition to the idealized opening scenes of his youth, the film ends with a snapshot of Rafael and his father looking at his mother. No longer a fantastical figure to look up to, Rafael can begin to create a life for himself.