Madrid, 1987

Madrid 1987 is, at its core, a two-person, four-wall theatrical play.  It is the Waiting for Godot of the 21st century. No, wait  - it is the My Dinner with Andre of the new millennium but instead of Andre it is Andrea and she is naked for just about every second of the movie.  The idea is this: a famed writer in his 70's and a student in early 20's wind up in a locked bathroom without a stitch of clothing for nigh on to 18 hours.  How and why they got that way sort of matters but it is what follows that makes the movie.  He wants to boff her - duh! - and she is not so crazy about the idea, even though she had been willing enough to see where things led but has come to realize the minuses greatly outweigh the pluses and so she would like to peace out but the door is locked and the window is oh so very tiny.  She is trapped.  With nothing to do but talk they begin a dialogue of sorts; the writer pontificates and the student drops in a pithy comment or two.  The result is not amusing in the classic sense - I laughed not once and never, ever stopped the movie to ponder some thought oft-said but ne'er so well expressed.  But the movie is terrific.  And the reason is Maria Valverde.  So, okay, the 20 collages and 10 clips tell you she spent some time in the buff and she is more than sort of pleasant to gaze upon, but she can also run the gamut of a young person's emotions like on one else on the planet.  The gal can act.  Maria is not voluptuous - had Eva Green done this movie it would have been capped by every soul on the web - and that feature of her body is essential to the story.  The writer wants to fuck her not because he finds her T and her A attractive but because he finds her youth irresistible.  Part way through the movie - in its one untrue moment - he talks about people fucking and describes them as weightless and tells Maria's character that is why he wanted to fuck her.  Bullshit.  He knows, as does anyone this side of 40, that a guy is only as old as the gal he is fucking.  He wants to be 20 again  or do 20 again or feel as did when he was 20 again and to do that he needs to fuck this young woman.  Maria's character understands the door swings both ways and she is likely to feel as old as the guy she is fucking and so, for half the movie, she resists.  Fuck they do, eventually, and it is what they do afterward that elevates Madrid 1987 above all manner of typical movies made in the good old US of A.  In a Hollywood movie the couple would do one of two things after bumping uglies: 1) Feel and demonstrate instant remorse; 2) Grow closer together so that as they part, a warm glow would settle over that half the audience whose IQ is slightly higher than room temperature.  Madrid does neither.  What the characters do in their  post-coital hours is charming but not cloying - they get along just fine and connect at some greater level, but there is no magic and in the end she is annoyed with his cynicism and wishes he would just keep it to himself.  When they are let out of the bathroom - rescued from this shared space - she rushes out the door, throws on her clothes and scurries away without a word or a smile.  The movie ends as she strides down the street for home.  That's real life and so is Madrid 1987.