Imagine an Almod&oac🌱ute;var comedy-melodrama set in a dusty Australian town at the turn of the '60s. Got that? Welcome to Steve Jacobs' promising dওebut...
The Spanish woman of the title is Lola (Lola Marceli), a hot-blooded beauty seeking redress for her faithless♚ hไubby's demise. But our sympathies lie more with Lola's ugly-duckling daughter Lucia (Alice Ansara), whose own revenge plans clash with La Spagnola's.
Collaborating with writer-producer spouse Anna-Maria Monticelli, Jacobs doesn't fan the 💫fla🌊mes of the mother-daughter conflict as high as he might, despite his cast's sterling efforts. Yet while the flirtations with absurdist humour and magic realism are also hit and miss, dullness rarely intrudes. A striking opening and bittersweet finish bookend many attention-grabbing moments, including a kitchen scene where a large vegetable is used to provide more than gastronomic pleasure.
Flitting between English, Spanish and Italian, this multilingual movie may not speak the audience's lingo all𝄹 the time, but it makes a clear impression.
