The Noble Family (Nosotros los Nobles) can only begin with spoiled behaviour of the most egregious, obvious kind, as well as characters to match. The adult offspring of a wealthy businessman flaunt their privilege at every turn, as well as their selfish mindsets. It’s the type of scathing portrait of well-to-do youth that could simmer with generational judgement, as the older, wiser and harder working lament the state of “kids these days”. Here, the situation is used to call attention to class as well as age differences, a specific statement reflecting the inequities of its country of origin.
Siblings Javier (Luis Gerardo Méndez, Morelos), Bárbara (Karla Souza, TV’s How to Get Away with Murder), and Carlos (Juan Pablo Gil, Pulling Strings) swan around Mexico City doing what they please — such as partying instead of working for the family company, using their widowed father’s money to support others, and choosing sex over study at college. Tired of their ungrateful ways, Germán Noble (Gonzalo Vega, Treading Water) decides to teach his children a lesson. He fakes bankruptcy, seizes their assets, and tricks them into thinking they’re fugitives, with living in a rundown house in a poor neighbourhood and getting jobs for the first time in their lives the first steps in their journey towards truly growing up.
The sitcom-like scenario is far from unique, first stemming from Adolfo Torrado’s play El Gran Calavera, then adapted for the screen in Luis Buñuel’s 1949 comedy The Great Madcap, and now modernised by first-time feature writer/director Gary Alazraki and co-scribes Adrian Zurita (La Clinica) and Patricio Saiz (Cloroformo) in a slick yet sweet affair. What the film and its premise lack in originality, however, both make up for in their contemporary societal commentary at a time when discrepancies in income levels in Mexico are pronounced.
All things broad-based might be the name of the feature’s game in its easy yet incisive observational humour, but The Noble Family hits plenty of targets in its contemplation of the chasm between the haves and have nots, as well in its illustration of the sense of entitlement that festers in those lucky enough to have only known the good life. Such reflections don’t only fall in one direction, with the movie equally aware of the distance that forms as a result of busy parents. These life lessons might be plainly apparent, but they’re also pertinent, even when played for maximum joke impact.
That pairing of convention with smatterings of perceptiveness flows through The Noble Family in a narrative, visual and emotional sense, as well as in the convincing cast and the feature’s competent construction. Boasting performances in step with the over-the-top yet on-point mood, and pieced together with sentiments both upbeat and accurate, a polished – albeit predictable – look at the laughs of the other half brought down to size is the socially-relevant end result.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
The Noble Family (Nosotros los Nobles)
Director: Gary Alazraki
Mexico, 2013, 108 mins
Gold Coast Film Festival
gcfilmfestival.com
9–19 April 2015
Actors:
Director:
Format:
Country:
Release:
