Not everyone who becomes extremely rich overnight would have the audacity to tell the four winds about it, but the character of Maribel Verdú in Happy 140 He jumps into the pool. In the end, she thinks, those around her are friends and family, people who love her… but doesn’t money corrupt everything? Antonio de la Torre, Eduard Fernández, Nora Navas Marian Álvarez and Ginés García Millán complete the cast of this ensemble film, a drama full of black humor directed by the filmmaker Grace Querejeta in his third collaboration with Verdú after, Seven French pool tables, 14 years and one day.
The director thought of Verdú from the first moment, to whom she always thought of giving a character like this. In Happy 140, Elia, the protagonist, decides to gather her family and her friends to celebrate her 40th birthday and tell them the big news. Among all of them is her friend, but former partner of hers, played by García Millán, who is accompanied by his new girlfriend. This is where the envy game begins. Maybe this is the reason why Elia decides to drop the bombshell?
How far can envy take us?
An envy that unleashes others, those of family members who want to get a pinch of the prize and will make things cloudy. “What she really wants is to recover her old love and she loses her mind a little,” Verdú said in an interview with RTVE. “But anyway, everything would have been muddied anyway because money almost always rots everything. Managing envy is very complicated“.
Nora Navas, Marian Álvarez in ‘Felices 140’
A hell in a natural paradise: Where was it filmed?
The meeting place is a lavish rural house on the island of Tenerife. And in the gathered group is her sister (Marian Alvarez), brother in law (Antonio de la Torre), Soul friend (Eduard Fernandez), his wife (Nora Navas), the ex he still loves (Ginés García Millán), his young girlfriend (Paula Cancio), and an already millionaire friend (Alex O’Dogherty). Marian Álvarez and Antonio de la Torre. Eduard Fernández and Nora Navas. Two fictional couples with at least one Goya award each. Marian Álvarez returns to the cinema, after triumphing in 2013 with The woundin the role of a seemingly weak woman.
‘Happy 140’, by Gracia Querejeta
This is how it all began: The limits of love and friendship
Antonio Mercero, co-writer of Happy 140, heard on the radio a dilemma that was posed to people on the street: would you give up your best friend for a million euros? They all said yes. In other words, a friend is a treasure, yes, but valued at less than a million. “I am afraid that it is a realistic vision, with its point of cynicism”Querejeta stated to RTVE. “We could tell the story that they are all brothers of charity, but I was interested in bringing to light the darkest aspects of human beings,” something that for Verdú was what came closest to the reality of life.
Happy 140 This is what the news shows tell us, it is an extreme example of a day-to-day story. There are brothers who stop talking to each other because of an inheritance, fights and dark stories about money. With everything, There is room for some light and hope in Querejeta’s film, yes, you have to be attentive to see it, it is fleeting. But in that honest evil, among the drama, there is also humor to scratch and enjoy.
