‘Every day a clever one is born’: few laughs in a satire about the Spain of wheeling and dealing

In the country of roguery, cinema about small jobs and scams to try to climb the social ladder or maintain the one achieved through cunning has always been a classic. Whether starting from sympathy and complicity, like Pedro Lazaga’s trilogy about proletarian criminals consisting of Los tramposos (1959), Sabían demasiado (1962) and La pandilla de los 11 (1963), starring those who saw theft not as a crime but as a profession. Or whether from the purest and noblest of angers, based on the injustice of feeling crushed every day by those above, a facet in which the extraordinary Atraco a las tres (1962) holds the captaincy.

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Inside and outside literature (and films), Spain has always been full of scoundrels, which is why the excellent title of the film we are discussing, Cada día nace un listo, and the small banner that, in the manner of a famous contemporary meme, with a simple cardboard and a witty phrase written with a marker, a nobody raises at the funeral of a very important person: “A thief has died”. A thief who is not precisely Tony Leblanc in the stamp scam of Los tramposos, nor López Vázquez, slave, friend, admirer and servant of Atraco a las tres. The deceased is one of those rich people whom everyone hates, with whom there is no possible empathy, a member of one of those families who, after his jump to the other side, fight among themselves over a painting that could be a Goya (we have it in the newspapers these days) or a Caravaggio (as in the film).

Arantxa Echevarría, who struggled so much to make a feature film (sad gender tolls), has picked up the pace. Eclectic and artisan, she has made five films in six years. Some, personal projects. Others, commissioned. Of unequal quality, however, between the frank adult commerciality of La infiltrada, the enormous sympathy of Chinas and the broad strokes of La familia perfecta and Políticamente incorrectos. Cada día nace un listo, unfortunately, is much closer to the second group than the first. A comedy about rich and poor, about corruption, cocaine, famous paintings, television puppets and high-denomination cash, between posh and tacky, shot in luxurious locations in San Sebastián (among them, Anoeta, the Real Sociedad stadium), which, however, rarely succeeds in its comedy.

With a screenplay signed by Echevarria together with Patricia Campo, the film is a satire with elements of a thriller, which stands out for its staging. There is rhythm, excellent camera perspectives and angles, and good use of the settings, both interior and exterior. And good details, like those queue jokes that someone shouts into the wind, and which the director films in a wide shot so as not to underline their comedy with closer shots, and thus magnify them: that child in a Nico Williams shirt shouting at the protagonist “Go find a house!”. Zeltia Montes’ excellent soundtrack, with touches of spaghetti-western, completes a good artistic ensemble in terms of form, above average in national comedy.

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However, the content, that is, the situations and dialogues, barely provoke smiles and, much less, laughter. Especially the conversations, with which its good cast can do little: from the main protagonists, Hugo Silva and Susi Sánchez, to the punctual appearances of the very funny debutante Marina Ostolaza. Mind you, they are not bad dialogues. But not good either.

The Basque atmosphere may at some point recall Enrique Urbizu’s Todo por la pasta (1991), although what Cada día nace un listo really seems to want to connect with is the madness of Airbag (including a buffoonish Galician, and Diego Anido in Manuel Manquiña’s place). However, Echevarría and Campo’s screenplay is too focused on the intrigue of the robbery and much less on the characters and on fitting in replies and counter-replies that produce the necessary physical reactions. The criticism of a certain Spain is there, but, despite its dynamism, if that diatribe doesn’t make you laugh too much (or almost at all), the entertainment doesn’t even reach fleeting.

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