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Anything You Want
- Director: Achero Mañas
- Writer: Achero Mañas
- Producer: Achero Mañas; José Nolla
CGiii Comment
What would you do for your child?
...anything?
The first 45 minutes is a straightforward story of loss...of a mother, by a husband and a daughter.
And then...it hits a brick wall for the viewer - Mañas presents a choice...either go with it or switch off...it is a difficult choice because the plausibility of the situation will challenge everyone...our advice: Go with it.
In muted colour, Mañas presents the grieving process and the coping mechanisms adopted by both child and man...to be able pull this off, chemistry and control are the vital ingredients...as actors, the father and child are beyond reproach.
Derision and hate disregard the story behind the story...the homophobic attack on a homophobe is a stark reminder of how irrational and ignorant hate is...
Mañas manages, brilliantly, to question everyone's discrimination by simply asking...what would you do for your child?
A simple question that should not be divisive...if it is...then, you are, indeed, in a dark place.
A powerful and exceptional piece of work...for the open-minded.
Be open-minded.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
Leo is immediately set adrift by his new found responsibilities as a single parent, a feeling that is made doubly distressing when Dafne, herself understandably confused and heartbroken by her mother's absence, asks for an "artificial" mother to help her fall asleep at night. It is here that Mañas takes the road less traveled, but to write any more about the plot line he introduces would be unfair to both the viewer and filmmaker alike. Suffice it to say that Leo's actions are both surprising and potentially dangerous, as they require Leo to subsume his own identity to the point where he nearly loses it.
Cast & Characters
Juan Diego Botto as Leo;
José Luis Gómez as Alex;
Ana Risueño as Alicia;
Pedro Alonso as Pedro;
Najwa Nimri as Marta;
Alberto Jiménez as Cliente de Leo;
Ana Wagener as Ana;
Paloma Lorena as Castañera;
Lucía Fernández as Dafne;
Alfredo Alba as Juez