¨The Future Is Not What It Was ¨is an agreeable , sympathetic but uneven comedy .In this film Carlos , a family man who has not yet grown up. He plays two opposite roles a separated father and in distress and a TV fortune teller who predicts the future of the people using digital tarot cards. He is an ambitious character but really failed and with a big heart . In this challenge, he is accompanied by his mother Carmen Segarra (Carmen Maura) who is diagnosed with a terminal cancer. Carlos since childhood has always wanted to have a wonderful future, he has always known that this future has to come successfully . The only one who seems to understand him is Carmen, a highly talented actress who keeps her relationship a secret because Carlos asked her to do so. Waiting for that better future , Carlos has to reorganize his life so as not to lose his family definitively. At the age of 40 he begins to doubt that future that he longs for, everything seems to turn out the other way around, his children cannot stand him and his ex-wife (Carolina Bang , Eloy de la Iglesia's spouse) does not stop blaming him for his failures as a person. Then Carlos receives an offer from a national television to be the star fortune teller of a hit program. Carlos/Kar-el, becomes a highly famous television presenter whose contract has to be renewed and he is not clear about it, the only thing that unites him to that character is the friendship of the director (José Corbacho) of the production company .
A nice but extremely sentimental and transcendental film with a thought-provoking messsage . From start to finish the picture displays emotion , laughs , drama and silly incidents . Dani Rovira accepts the challenge of playing two diametrically opposed characters, Kar-el, a bizarre and funny fortune teller and a good family man . Dani gives a likeable and attractive acting as the outlandish father who attempts to better his life and reconnect with his stranded sons and ex wife. The film aims to be a pleasant family comedy with all the canons that the American comedy of the genre delivers. It leaves much to be desired in some aspects, it does not work in its dramatic elements , but unfortunately it is not right as a comedy either. The phrases that pretend to excite and make us think seem to be taken from a self-help book or a monologue by Rovira himself , in fact Dani is considered to be one of the best Stand-Up comedy actors . The attempt to create a typically American family comedy does not work at all , developing a story that seems to be wedged with large monologues and brooding speeches. Dani Rovira is well accompanied by a good cast , such as : Carmen Maura as the famed actress , Carolina Bang , who for the first time plays a mother of a family , José Corbacho as the histrionic director of a television network and Luisa Martin as a TV presenter .
Shot in Oviedo by cameraman Juan Carlos Gómez and to enjoy some spectacular outdoors of the Asturian city . Along with an evocative and exciting musical score by Victor Reyes . ¨El Futuro Ya No Es Lo Que Era¨ is Pedro Barbero's return to directing 15 years after Tuno Negro, a rather weak debut but one that did not improve much in his second foray into directing. ¨The Future Is No Longer What It Was¨ failed at the Spanish boxoffice because the director has not been able to find the right tone for what he wants to show us. The fans of Rovira will laugh a lot at the faces he puts on.
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