Movie Review and Director Interview: Rudo y Cursi

by Erin Rice

Though at its core a story about brotherhood played out on the soccer field, one will not find many actual soccer scenes in the film released to Dallas audiences today, Rudo y Cursi. Far from an oversight, the decision to make soccer a backup character came to director Carlos Cuaron when he watched Michael Haneke's original Funny Games.

"It's probably the most violent film I've seen and the violence is off camera... I was very concerned about soccer, it's not easy to shoot and I did not want to make a sports movie. It was tough for me right up until that point when I saw Haneke's movie... I thought, 'yeah, why don't I do that?'"

Set in Mexico, Rudo y Cursi opens on a banana plantation where we are introduced to brothers Beto and Tato Verdusco. Beto (Diego Luna: Milk, Y Tu Mama Tambian) is "Rudo," the tough brother, the goalkeeper, with a wife and child and dreams of playing professional soccer someday. Tato (Gael Garcia Bernal: The Motorcycle Diaries, Y Tu Mama Tambian) is eventually nicknamed "Cursi," Spanish for Corny, and plays to this moniker with a foolhardy passion for music, despite his undeniable talent as a striker.

On their way to a village soccer game, the brothers run into the film's narrator, a talent scout and agent called "Batuta." After seeing them play, he claims that he can make just one of them a professional player and leaves the decision to the brothers. Choosing the dramatic penalty kick as the deciding factor, a communication failure between the brothers sets them on their individual paths into the world of professional soccer and fame, and towards their eventual self-destruction.

Rudo y Cursi is the first directorial feature from Carlos Cuaron, known most notably for his work as a co-screenplay writer with his brother, Alfonso, on Y Tu Mama Tambien. A self-proclaimed "soccer freak," Cuaron wanted to write something about soccer, "to get it out of my system." The original concept was a fake-documentary about a man who would rapidly make it big in professional soccer and just as rapidly fall off the radar. On promotional trips for Y Tu Mama Tambien, Cuaron pitched the idea separately to both Luna and Bernal and each actor was enthusiastic about playing the main character. "So I had a problem, I had two actors and one character," said Cuaron. "What I realized is that I wanted to work with them. So I made up a brother."

After seeing the movie with the brothers, it's hard to imagine that a single character could have given the film the depth it had with two. Part of Rudo y Cursi's magic is the ease of the relationship between Bernal and Luna's characters. The Mexican-born actors grew up together because their parents were friends, which lends believability to their quarrels and ability to quickly forgive and coexist.

But while that preexisting relationship made it easier for the two actors to relate, their individual roles remained a challenge. One interesting feature of the film was the directorial decision to assign Bernal to "Corny" and Luna to "Tough."

"I met with them in a restaurant in Mexico City and they were confused, because [before] I wanted to make a fake documentary about one character," explains Cuaron. When he told them about the new, brotherly screenplay they were excited, but when he explained which roles he envisioned for each they balked. "And I said no," Cuaron continues, "I don't want to make Y Tu Mama Tambien 2. I don't like repeating myself when I work. They understood it perfectly and began to throw out ideas immediately."

Rudo y Cursi dabbles in heavy themes, including gambling, drugs, anger and betrayal, but is not a "dark" film. The subject matter is dealt with lightly and there are plenty of opportunities for laughter. Tato (Cursi) is essentially a ridiculous person and his exploits and inability to recognize his talents are more hilarious than they are saddening. Beto, with his penchant for flying into rage, is often over-the-top and comical. Meanwhile, Batuta's narration, knowledgeable and always tied somehow to lessons learned on the soccer field, is the perfect accompaniment to his on-screen persona of the playboy, with a different long-legged vixen every appearance and a backhanded approach to getting his recruits playing time.

In the end, the laughter is what ties the viewer to the characters. Were the film an hour and a half-or-so-long buzz-kill, the connection could have been lost. Though he did not set out to create a comedy, this is something that Cuaron attributes to "the pain of laughter."

"Most of the time it's this kind of laughter that you are not comfortable with because they are mistreating each other or something terrible is happening, and then you find yourself laughing," said Cuaron. "I don't know how I could have done it darker because I am not that dark. Probably if we asked Guillermo [del Toro - one of the film's producers] to direct... we would get this dark, brother relationship, and both of them would die in the end. I don't have that."

Though some may enter Rudo y Cursi expecting a soccer movie with brothers, it leaves a greater impression to know that sport is more a "fourth character" or a vehicle for the greater story of brotherhood. While it can be easy to view Beto and Tato as a pair of mishaps in the greater scheme of life, Cuaron's passion for his sometimes ridiculous characters makes you care about them in the end.

"My two characters are not losers they are winners. Why? Because at the end of the film they recognize each other as brothers. That is the main theme."