Award-winning oddity from Spain, co-written/directed by Antonio Méndez Esparza, stars Malena Alterio (she’s the one who got the awards) as staff computer techie at a big dental supply firm who’s having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad day at work before heading home to find a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad situation with her failing/elderly dad and his sub-par caretaker. Next morning is only worse as now it’s her workplace having the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad day: building locked/company shut down, zero notification, thousands in uncollected salaries, hundreds unemployed. Starting from scratch, Alterio ditches I.T. for Taxi; a newly purchased car and you can be your own boss. And what a chatty boss she is to her customers, who amazingly all seem to enjoy sharing life stories back and forth. Bad news from the doctor? Back to your hotel for a life-affirming shag. A theater producer? Perhaps you know the mystery actor living above me; the one who plays Puccini’s TURANDOT all day.* And imagine picking up your old boss in some bad neighborhood, drunk, injured, needing a hospital. What a chance for revenge! Like the river in the old adage, sit long enough in your taxi cab and the whole world will pass by. Ready for revenge, she soon starts murdering those who done her wrong. (Frankly, dying preferable to being trapped in the back seat once she starts talking.) And right at the finish?; a tag ending offering a narrative get-out-of-jail-free card. Best wait for the next taxi.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Just about any Pedro Almodóvar film from the last five decades.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Credit someone for using the best recording of Puccini’s TURANDOT: Sutherland, Pavarotti, Caballé, Mehta conducting. Come to think of it, The Princess Turandot is also out for revenge, but I can't see her pulling a rickshaw.
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