Què t'hi jugues Mari Pili? (1990)
(What's your betMari Pili?)
What's your bet, Marie?
Sole, Marie and Marta are three nearly twenty year old girls that share an apartment in the pre-Olympic city of Barcelona. The first girl, Sole (BLANCA PAMPOLS), is a brillant economics student that combines naivety and bashfulness with a slightly overweight condition. She likes comfortable and informal clothes and, above all, not to be treated like a child. Marie (MERCE LLEIXA), on the other hand, is a wide-awake, flexible, feline, aggressive, tender girl that depends on the opportunity, but is never lacking opportunities. She is the cashier at an American-style hamburger place where she earns just enough to pay for her part of the rent, fill the tank of her Vespino and buy an occasional pair of elastic pants designed by a schizophrenic. Her greatest characteristic is her wild black hair and wicked eyes that give her a look of the femme fatale that she actually isn't: under the shallow of aggressiveness there is a person full of tenderness. And last but not least, Marta (NURIA HOSTA) is a very attractive, independent and dynamic blond with iniciative and an urge to impruve, all of which are very useful qualities if, as in her case, one has reached the position of sales manager of a chain of jewellery stores at scarcely twenty four. As earning money does not imply any special effort for her, what really stimulates her is proving to herself and others that she is a natural winner. And to do this, she doesn't hesitate to put herself to the test at the slightest opportunity. And if the opportunity doesn't arise, she invents it.
Our story commences one summer morning when the three girls discover, only too late, that the frozen patties must be fried in oil. While cleaning the kitchen, Sole complains about the complexity of the ritual of finding a mate: remove the hair from ones legs every week, adopt sexy postures at the serious risk of straining your spinal column, stuffing yourself with gin-tonics, etc. Keeping in mind that the desire to pick someone up consists "only of a state of mind that predisposes one to accept a member of the opposite sex", Sole asks herself, "Why wait until the weekend to go to a disco and get involved with the first man that asks you your name?". Marta takes advantage of this verbal thought of her housemate to clarify the fact that she is a woman of action. The only thing that occurs to her is to propose a game: avoid all the preambles to the manhunt and take a short cut in the pursuit of a mate; in other words, have an affair with the first man that asks you your name. Sole takes her on without hesitation, but that is hardly surprising since the poor girl stands out, leaving her intelligence aside, for the lack of interest she arouses in the opposite sex. On the other hand, Marie, the man-eater of the group, absolutely refuses to take part in this game from the beginning, but winds up accepting.
And this is how our story begins...
FESTIVALS
Festivals: Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Puerto Rico (USA); Newcastle (UK); Lyon (France); Florence (Italy); The Cairo (Egypt); Hamburg (Germany); Bogotá & Medellín (Colombia); Murcia, Gijón & Peñíscola (Spain)…
CREW
DIRECTOR and PRODUCER
VENTURA PONS
SCREEPLAY
JOAN BARBERO
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION
XAVIER BASTÉ
MUSIC
XAVIER CAPELLAS
PHOTOGRAPHY
MACARI GOLFERICHS
EDITOR
EMILIO ORTIZ
ART DIRECTOR
GLÒRIA MARTÍ
SOUND
LICIO MARCOS DE OLIVEIRA
A Els Films de la Rambla, S.A. production.
CAST
MARTA
NÚRIA HOSTA
MARI PILI
MERCÈ LLEIXÀ
SOLE
BLANCA PÀMPOLS
PEPE
PEP MUNNÉ
ANGEL
MARC MARTÍNEZ
MARICA
LLOLL BERTRAN
MOHAMED
ÀNGEL BURGOS
CEFE
MINGO RÀFOLS
MACARENA
AMPARO MORENO
ENRIQUE
FERNANDO GUILLÉN
PHOTOS
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FILM REVIEW
WATH'S YOUR BET, MARY PILI?
THREE LUCKY GIRLS
Núria Hosta, Mercè Lleixà and Blanca Pàmpols are three lucky girls. They have found three delicious female characters with which all actresses dream of as if they were the love of our lives; their characters are looking for just that: the love of their lives or maybe they aren't looking for pick up the first man that asks them their name. And they are in luck. But, to be lucky, you have to take risks.
"WHAT'S YOUR BET, MARIE" is a comedy about luck. And it shows us, without any pomposity, but with dazzling wit, that to be lucky you first have to gamble. Marc Martínez, Pep Munné and Fernando Guillén are also three lucky guys. The characters they play are terribly attractive, credible in their initial confusion that leads them, wildly and without warning, to the apartment of three charming girls. In that apartment the three "partenaires" are stripped throughout the film, in awkward situations that become the great scoring system of a motion picture, the lucky number of which is three. Ventura Pons is a lucky director. He has a fortunate intuition and has known how to develop it thanks to the long professional career behind him, and a talent that, in all honesty, that I had not seen him show with such confidence and naturalness until this pure, simple, unpretentious, unsnobish, but absolutely moving comedy. Pons knows that, in a good comedy, the director should not be too apparent, but must work very much: he has worked out the sequences with straightforwardness and elegance, and has carried this amusing story of interrelated love affairs, with a steady hand.
The audience is in luck because Catalonian comedy is in luck. All this was a bet, a mystery, a "let's see what happens". A series of examples that tend to show that this genre works if there is someone behind it that decides to take a chance on his talent. But, in this world, everything is a bet. A trio of girls make a bet to see if they can pick up the first guy that asks them their name. And it works out. Indeed! If you see an amused and convinced audience coming out of a theater, saying that they have seen an amusing comedy that relates to themselves, I wouldn't ask the title of the film. I would just go in, and I bet whatever you want that you will find it is Ventura Pons' latest film. What's your bet?
by Núria Bou
AVUI
VENTURA PONS' BEST FILM
Pons moves the film with confident assurance, slowly at first, to then gradually speed up the rhythm for the frantic climax, where like in genuine vaudeville all the characters, and others, pile into one scene with hilarious effects. And his theatrical experience as a director helps him to obtain a maximum result from a group of actors in wich veterans rub shoulders with newcomers Mercè Lleixà/Marie, with a sense of comedy as considerable as her nose, will be a revelation to many without mentioning Amparo Moreno, a "bigger than life" gipsy who puts to good use the many wisecracks offered to her by the dialogue.
Without annoying pretensions or another objective than pure amusement, without post-modern whims Here each character is what they seem to be, and nothing more this film gives off a magnificent, infrequent and contagious "joie de vivre".
José Luís Guarner
Fotogramas
RECONCILIATION WITH COMEDY
"WHAT YOUR BET, MARIE?" can well be what "Boom Boom" was last year; in other words, that film that reconciles you with comedy. It is refreshing, overflowing, with joy and slightly vivacious, with a wink, and in the classical comedy style. Without blushing, a basic concept that this film offers with generosity must be restored: entertaintment. The script blends many situations, each as entangled as the others; and many characters, a new one every two minutes until mixed, are stirred and served in the final sequence, in the apartment, making the hysterical happening explode. And the shooting advances, ipso facto, with an evenly accelerated acceleration, without letting up, and reaches a pace adequate to the genre, without which a comedy is not a comedy taht hooks you.
A final word for the actors. They are all fresh and spontaneous, but Amparo Moreno deserves a monument and a stack of medals. The most amusing and delightful part of the film is her quaint and folkloric Macarena. You spend the rest of the film waiting for her to reappear and do her thing as, years ago, you would wait, with frenzy, the appearance of Edward Everett Horton, Eugene Pallette or Eve Arden. What a woman!
J. Batlle Caminal
Guia del Ocio