On SBS and streaming on SBS On Demand - Barrie Pattison enjoys NO KIDS/SIN HIJOS (Ariel Winograd, Spain, 2015)

The agreeable production line entertainment features that were the backbone of movie-going most of my life have all but vanished. I watched The Fall Guy for which a couple of name stars in a comedy-crime piece wasn’t enough. They had to add-in takes where the camera follows a character up four flights before dropping them down a lift well, dialogue about split screen that was done in split screen, Sydney Harbour locations, multi rolling cars and setting the lead on fire. 

I came home wanting a break from all this overkill and the TV put up SBS doing something called No Kids, which turned out to be Sin Hijos, a nine year old Spanish movie with the immensely watchable Maribel Verdú and Diego Peretti, anticipating director Ariel Winograd’s line of polished, agreeable romcoms, the 2022 Hoy se arregla el mundo /Today We Fix the World, 2020’s El robo del siglo / The Heist Of The Century, and the much re-treaded 2017 Mamá se fue de viaje / 10 Days Without Mum. I find that No Kids also was re-made in 2020.

 

No Kids has that cycle’s nice mean streak. Hangdog Perretti now shares the custody of his nine year old daughter Guadalupe Manen, juggling that with running Cabau’s Music Store, the inherited family business, when who should walk into the shop but his decade cherished crush Maribel, who doesn’t remember him. She’s irresistible. When she proves multi-lingual, he asks which she speaks and she says “Many – badly, like the Pope.” There’s only one problem. She hates children – a demo in the park where a baby bursts out crying on seeing Maribel but beams at Peretti. Frantic exertions follow, converting his flat into an economically furnished bachelor pad when she visits and back when Manen comes home. Diego passes the kid off as his sister by a long-lived dad. At one stage, Peretti is stuck on a pier collecting a ship load of keyboards and desperately tries to find someone in the family who can pick up his daughter from music practice, finally only left with Maribel. He rushes home and his first question is “Did you kill her?” In the nicest passage. Manen figures it out and starts running the operation.

 

Diego Peretti, Maribel Verdú Sin Hijos/No Kids 

Winograd’s act is juxtaposing his comedians with children. Characteristically in 10 Days Without Mum, his daughter warns dad Perretti (again) that if he fires the so nice baby sitter, she’ll learn to drive and run him over.

 

No Kids is nicely developed – Perretti’s ex-wife’s kung fu instructor new husband is glimpsed in the background showing Bruce Lee moves to brother Martín Piroyansky, the runaway white rabbit in the park is the link back to Diego’s magician father and particularly we get the school concert where Maribel sees Peretti accompany Menen’s song on guitar. His “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to lose you” is as much reality as one of these can handle. The piece has built enough good will to carry it past the inescapable feel-good ending.

 

Bright coloured good living settings – the apartment glass balcony – sustain the mood and the leads couldn’t be better. Weathered Perretti is a welcome departure from the conventional romantic hero. It’s a big deal when he shaves his permanent stubble to impress the winning Verdú. I think that the enjoyment of watching Winograd’s films is in no small measure that they are a reminder of the fading concept of movies as an agreeable way to spend time rather than gather record first day takings, demonstrate refined taste or signal sympathy with the underprivileged. I recommend hunting this one down in SBS’s repeats or on demand.