The Marriage App movie review: Luisana Lopilato leads impressive cast in predictable Argentinian rom-com

Language: Spanish with English audio and subtitle options

Cast: Luisana Lopilato, Juan Minujin, Cristina Castano, Andrea Rincon, Julian Lucero, Santiago Gobernori

Director: Sebastian de Caro

Belen and Federico could be any couple anywhere. They meet as lovers in rom-coms often do, as strangers following a chance accident and with a soft romantic number playing in the background. Their story hits fast-forward mode almost immediately. Belen and Federico are married now and, a few years and two kids later, they find their marriage falling in a rut. That is when they discover Equilibrium, a wonder app guaranteed to transform tired marriages.

The Marriage App, titled Matrimillas in original Spanish language, tries creating the gentle stock laughs you would expect from a traditional romantic comedy, and mixes it with a mild jibe at the new-age obsession with apps to solve every problem in life. The makers of the Argentinian film were clearly in no mood to engage in serious conversation on the relationship issues that sustain the plot, and director Sebastian De Caro mostly focuses on using the couple’s unusual quest for marital bliss to create humour and romantic drama within the storyline.

In the age of the Apple watch, Equilibrium sure would seem like a cheeky statement. A fictional device solely invented within the reality of this script, it is like a watch, although it is actually a scale that can “make happily ever after a reality”, informs the savvy representative selling the concept to Belen and Federico, adding: “You can make use of these scales to balance your relationship.” Simply put, each watch registers points, referred here as miles, for its wearer, with the person in question standing to gain or lose miles depending on how they behave in their relationship. The gadget functions as a tracking app that uses biometric data to record emotions and then convert the same into miles. Once a person accumulates enough miles, they can spend it on things of their pleasure. “It’s like an emotional cryptocurrency,” explains the representative.

The humour is predictable straightaway, and mostly mediocre as Belen and Federico agree to try out the app. Initially, they are honest in their intentions and fall over each other to make the other person happy. “It’s not even a week and I can already feel a big difference,” Belen confesses to a friend, who retorts in jest: “You’re becoming his love slave.” Random funny humour is set off in a dinner table scene where Federico has prepared a sumptuous Asian meal for Belen and the kids. In overdoing their display of emotions for each other, the couple literally forget the children are around. “Are we in a parallel universe?” their little boy wonders as mom and dad all but make out before them. “Perhaps they are having the infamous midlife crisis simultaneously,” his older sister replies.

Then, just when you thought the routine was getting monotonous, the script ushers in the sole twist on which the entire drama rests. Suddenly, the priority of the couple is no longer to keep each other happy. Driven by the app, Belen and Federico are seized with the hunger to add up more miles than the other. For Federico especially, getting there is important because being the first one to reach a 1,000 points would let him realise his dream vacation to Cancun. Conjugal tension gets a whole new spin, naturally, as competition creeps into the couple’s relationship. Even taking out the trash is no longer a regular chore but a plum way to rack up a few miles.

The problem for Belen and Federico obviously is they cannot afford to misbehave with each other as that would lead to the deduction of points. So, they try to keep up a plastic facade of civility and love to conceal their no-holds-barred intent at ‘winning’ in this unusual game of one-upmanship. Soon, the urge to win becomes more than just that — it morphs into the need to become independent from each other. Even as that attitude takes over, things threaten to fly out of control. The very intent with which the couple had opted to try out the app now seems to have backfired.

Screenwriters Gabriel Korenfeld and Rocio Blanco set up a rather flat narrative, sticking to banal plot progression. A marital tension, even if it is sparked off by a wonky app, is not quite a laughing matter, more so if it leads the marriage in question to break point. The writer duo, however, treats Belen and Federico’s increasingly strained relationship solely as a means to generate a few gags, deliberately refusing to probe beyond the surface. To their credit, the gags, though simplistic, are mostly funny and good enough for a few chuckles.

Director Sebastian De Caro has in the past revealed a fetish for playing around with rom-com themes without distorting their mainstream essence. In Rockabilly, his debut film of 2000, De Caro gave the boy-meets-girl template a twist with the story of a young guy who will go to any extent for the girl of his dreams, although she is least interested. In his 2013 release 20,000 Besos, the filmmaker looked at the unpredictable nature of love through the story of a man who wants to remain single but cannot resist falling in love with an annoying female colleague. Compared to these films, the plot of De Caro’s new rom-com had a better scope to analyse human relationships with a touch of satire and some depth. The film could have been a caustic comment on new-age relationships, gadget fad and much more. Instead, the filmmaker’s focus all along remains on letting his funny on-screen couple play the field.

In turn, Luisana Lopilato and Juan Minujin make most of the romantic comedy they get to act out as Belen and Federico. Lopilato’s claim to fame among global OTT audiences lies in playing the intense action hero Manuela ‘Pipa’ Pelari in the thriller trilogy — Perdida, La Corazonada and Pipa. She clearly relishes a change of image in The Marriage App. Her comic chemistry with Minjuin’s Federico is understated yet authentic, in scenes of love as well as animosity. Much of the film’s gentle humour works because of the effortless rapport the lead duo shares on screen.

Rating: * * & 1/2 (two and a half stars out of five)

The Marriage App is streaming on Netflix

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist and film journalist based in Delhi-NCR.

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