In Cine Las Americas selection Amor y matemáticas Billy Lozano (Roberto Quijano) is going through something. A washed up former boy band member, stuck in a miserable marriage, with a new baby and a small dog. Billy is aimless, spending his days going through the motions in his nice, suburban Monterrey neighborhood.
One day, his life is interrupted when a new neighbor and former boy band fan, Mónica (Diana Bovio), pushes him to pick up music again.
Amor y matemáticas (Love & Mathematics in English) is an intriguing dark comedy from director Claudia Sainte-Luce and writer Adriana Pelusi. It’s at once a funny satire on suburban life and one man’s mid-life crisis, but also a thoughtful, sometimes harrowing examination of the lengths someone could go to for a shred of validation in their life. There are running bits about the annoying family dog, neighborhood dinner parties from hell, and spouses who simply don’t understand what their partner is going through. All of this makes for biting humor that lines the film, as does the complicated romance at its center.
The affair between Billy and Mónica is sweet but also fraught with awkward tension – the way Quijano plays it, it’s never clear if this tryst with Mónica is real for Billy or if it’s a way to validate and comfort his deeply insecure self-worth. Perhaps it’s both, a fantasy for a man with nothing else going on in his life and who wants to be validated no matter the cost.
Quijano makes an otherwise insufferable character somewhat worth rooting for, highlighting the vulnerability in Billy’s insecurities. Equally, Bovio brings manically devoted almost naive desire to Mónica, but also gives her a deeply human core, too. Their chemistry is both captivating and concerning, helping sell it all even more. Pelusi’s script does the work of balancing humor, romance, and an emotionally messy story without losing a beat.
Overall, Amor y matemáticas is a clever, funny, and thoughtful examination of the lengths one man (and maybe all of us) would go to for a scrap of relevancy or validation. Powered by lovely performances and smart writing, the film skewers suburban life but doesn’t let Billy off the hook either. It’s a welcome, biting satire that is self-aware enough to acknowledge its main character’s faults by not giving him what he initially wants, but by leaving us all guessing in the end.
Amor y matemáticas screened as part of the 2023 Cine Las Americas International Film Festival. cinelasamericas.org.
This article appears in June 23 • 2023.