Not everything has to be 'Torrente'

Well, the landscape would have to change a lot for this not to end up being the Spanish comedy of the year. It's very sharp, it has a script that makes you say "Yes, sir" and it tells heartbreaking truths with a half-smile. Beyond the malicious observation of certain customs of our time, it resonates with the new tones and forms of current humor. It rubs shoulders, for example, with the bestiary of Pantomima Full's videos, all of them based on a core idea: self-deception as the vital compass for many people in our present environment.

Day by day and year by year, Víctor García León is becoming one of the great Spanish comedy directors of this century. Vete de mí, Selfie,Los europeos and Altas capacidades place him in a very gratifying and necessary third way: there is room to maneuver between the humor of the grand spectacle of major popular titles and the extravagant jocularity of certain alternative films. García León explores this no man's land with talent and effectiveness, as filmmakers from the United States, France, or the United Kingdom would do, countries with a wider and more developed range of cinematic comedic tones.

Altas capacidades talks about a low-intensity class conflict, understanding some current elements of that historical struggle almost as a ridiculous First World problem. A couple with a comfortable, but not luxurious, life sees an opportunity to climb the social ladder by enrolling their son in an exclusive private school. In the process of convincing themselves that this is their place (the self-deception we were talking about earlier), they get to know the parents of the new school. And they are a circus: elitist ladies from expensive housing developments, big-mouthed and passive-aggressive executives (as this type of character is perfectly captured by Juan Diego Botto) and wives of drug traffickers. Too much caricature? In the magnificent register in which García León presents it, it seems almost documentary.