SuperClásico (2011)

Directed by: Ole Christian Madsen | 99 minutes | comedy | Actors: Paprika Steen, Anders W. Berthelsen, Adriana Mascialino, Sebastián Estevanez, Jamie Morton, Dafne Schiling, Mikael Bertelsen, Miguel Dedovich

When you hear the term Superclásico, every football fan immediately thinks of the matches between Real Madrid and Barcelona. But Argentina also appears to have a Superclásico, with the capital derby between River Plate and Boca Juniors. The Danish comedy ‘SuperClásico’ is named after this last match, a film with a female football agent and her footballing lover in the main supporting roles.

The lead roles are played by the football agent’s abandoned husband and their teenage son. At the beginning of the film, father and son board a plane to Buenos Aires in an attempt to save the family from a permanent divorce. The group falls apart in Argentina, after which the deceived husband meets an overheated housekeeper and an embittered winegrower, and the son loses his heart to the most beautiful museum guide in Latin America. Meanwhile, the mother and her soccer lover try to push through the divorce, because of their own wedding plans.

It makes for a mixed film to say the least. The story has hardly any meat on the bones and the subplots lead nowhere, but the characters are sympathetic enough to keep following. The film has its funny moments, with a hotelier whose principles go no further than his desk bell and a voice-over that is sometimes very dry. But there are just as many bleak scenes, with a lovemaking in the bath and a verbal clash between football fans as low points. It is inevitable that the tango appears regularly, but the way in which this happens the first time is special.

The capriciousness ensures that ‘SuperClásico’ never gets boring. What is also not boring is the visual style retention. The warm colors and tight compositions give Buenos Aires a metropolitan romance that makes you want to take the plane as soon as possible. And the Kierkegaard-based message—if you don’t choose, you will be chosen—is tucked away so far that it never interferes. What does hinder, however, are the continuity errors in the beginning.

In short, ‘SuperClásico’ is a film that you can watch with the same ease as skip it. The annoyance is never great, neither is the pleasure. A nice, remarkably confident comedy, but we are certainly not going to discover a super classic in it.