Screenplay, Fernando Castets, Campanella. Camera (color), Daniel Shulman; editor, Camilo Antolini; music, Emilio Kauderer; production designer, Maria Julia Bertotto. Reviewed at Buenos Aires Independent Cinema Festival, April 15, 2000. Original title: El mismo amor, la misma lluvia. Running time: 110 minutes.
With: Ricardo Darin, Soledad Villamil, Eduardo Blanco, Ulises Dumont, Graciela Tenebaum.
After a long stint directing film and TV in New York, Argentine helmer Juan Jose Campanella (“The Boy Who Cried Bitch,” “Love Walked In”) returns home with “The Same Love, the Same Rain,” a charming romantic comedy about an on-again, off-again love affair stretching over 20 years of recent history. Using popular TV thesps, including soap star Ricardo Darin, and an easy-to-follow storyline obviously influenced by classic Italian comedy, pic has performed quite well for local distrib WB and should be a natural pickup for Spanish-lingo markets.
Jorge (roguishly attractive Darin) is a serious fiction writer when he meets Laura (lively newcomer Soledad Villamil), a struggling young actress, in 1980. They escape the years of dictatorship unscathed, but after they live together briefly, Jorge’s cold feet kill the romance. Their breakup is followed by his moral and professional decline on the staff of a magazine and the eventual rejoicing of Peronists at the office after their party’s victory. Laura occasionally reappears at critical moments in his life. Tinged with unexpected bitterness, pic is more realistic than cynical, gives its sympathy to the heroine and naturally vaunts a happy ending.
