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End of the Century Movie Review

End of the Century is a 2019 Argentine romance film directed by Lucio Castro and starring Juan Barberini and Ramon Pujol. It’s a sweet, but mostly very slight movie.

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“We have met before“

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It follows the relationship that develops between two men on vacation in Barcelona and their realization that they have met before. This movie clearly tried to emulate the ‘Before’ trilogy, especially ‘Before Sunrise’, but failed at that as the characters simply weren’t interesting enough nor well developed.

Both Ocho and Javi weren’t particularly likable to me. Their romance is sweet and charming and I loved some small details and interesting conversations that they had, but the fact that their fling involved cheating instantly put me off and turned this supposedly romantic movie into a cheater’s relationship. It’s realistic, but again not my cup of tea as I am more into something more innocent in the realm of romantic storylines.

As is the case with most foreign movies, this one is also very erotic, some scenes are downright pornographic in their imagery. They were memorable and well shot, but again the smaller scenes between the two men were the highlights here. I particularly liked their conversations about work.

As for the twist that they have met before, that seemed unrealistic to me. It made the movie interesting in its switching between present day and past day scenes with the flashbacks being tender and nostalgic, but again the twenty-year span made it too unbelievable for me.

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End of the Century (Fin de siglo) is so well shot and composed. The first twelve minutes do not contain any talking and are somewhat boring, but at least the cinematography and the imagery are lovely. The dialogue that we get is pretty strong, but the movie would have benefited from choosing either a dialogue-heavy or visual approach to storytelling. They chose ultimately a mix of the two and it doesn’t quite work. The acting is good and the performers are quite charismatic and good-looking, but I wished their characters were a bit better developed.

End of the Century tried to emulate Before Sunrise in its approach, but did not quite manage to pull it off. Although the film is very well shot, elegant, sensual and featuring some interesting conversations and sweet moments, the characters at the center of it were not as well developed as the movie demanded and the whole premise was somewhat implausible in the first place.

My Rating – 3.5