Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

paul2001sw-1 A struggling Uruguayan businessman persuades his equally unglamourous assistant to pretend to be his wife in order to impress his estranged brother. If this conjures up thoughts of 'The Birdcage', or you imagine a riotous South American carnival of a film, you'd best prepare yourself otherwise, for 'Whisky' is characterised by almost exaggeratedly understated acting and a bone dry humour;, and its real subject matter is the psychology of failure. At start, it feels slow, but as one gets used to the characters, one sees more of the joke and sadness in the subtle plot. There are some resemblances to early Jarmusch, but even so, it's questionable whether one can make a wholly successful movie when quite so little explicit happens. In Uruguay, incidentally, they say "whisky" instead of "cheese" when a photograph is taken; but the deeper meaning of the film's title remains elusive at its end.

Roberto I recently saw this masterpiece of Latin American cinema. I've always taught that you don't need a big budget to make a big movie. Great movies relay on a great message, a solid statement. On this particular case "Whisky" from the beginning makes a point through its own images and pace. The viewer gets immersed in a routine, a horrible way of life of the main character (Jacobo Koller) that consists of living with no ambition, owning a horrible sock factory and going home with nothing... not a smile, not a desire, nothing, just the same routine over and over again. At the beginning when we see the same shots over and over, it seems like the movie is insisting upon itself, but is too important to state the point of the routine. We, as viewers get tired of watching this terrible life, imagine what it would be to live this life. When the main characters brother (Herman Koller) comes to Uruguay (a far more successful,and younger brother, that lives in Brazil), Jacobo asks Marta (an employee of his) to pretend she's his wife, probably to avoid criticism from his brother and to bare his brother's trip to Uruguay with someone else. Marta has the same features as Jacobo she lives a life of routine, with no surprises, nothing to take her out of her boredom. She's shy, and retrieved within herself, there will be a couple of scenes when we can see that probably Marta has been like this since she was a girl. Her relationship with Herman grows, she's in movement she wants something new. As for Jacobo he doesn't feel anything for life he's pessimistic, stubborn, a man with no dreams. The movie invites us to review our own life, are we going in a direction of routine and boredom? or are we looking for something new? Sometimes we can find that breath of life in the smallest of places, in the most unconventional of places, a book, a movie, a song, a trip, a person anything can give us something to live. Marta surely received that breath, and we all can.

Henry Fields There are some people , such as the main character in "Whisky" that have become in such emotional disabled people: they can love and (what's worst) they can't be loved. They cling to their routine, maybe a job in a factory, they live a grey existence. They don't want to suffer anymore, so they shield themselves against the world. Any attempt to communicate to someone like that is in vain, and you run the risk of getting hurt."Whisky" ain't an easy-watching movie, in any possible way: short and static sequences in which we can almost hear the tic-tac of the clock. Such a slow rhythm that intends to give the audience that feeling of boredom in the character's lives.Besides, there're no big revelations in here, there's no catharsis, no teaching... So this dry Whisky (not on the rocks) is only for the most patient, for those who are used to bitter things. The rest of you may hate this...7/10

roland-104 Droll, understated comedy that also works as an allegorical account of the general state of affairs in Uruguay these days. Jacobo Köller (Andres Pazos) runs a small, down at the heels sock factory in Montevideo. He's an avoidant, depressive, aging bachelor who had taken care of his ailing mother for years until her recent death.Now it is time for her Matzeivah (a ceremony at which a tombstone is placed on her grave), and Jacobo is obliged to invite his younger brother Herman (Jorge Bolani), who moved north years earlier to Brazil, where he has a wife and family and runs a highly successful sock factory.For reasons never made clear, Jacobo feels he must pretend to be recently married. He imposes on the long suffering Marta (Mirella Pascual), who is his forewoman at the sock factory, to act the role of his spouse.Set against the mind-numbing routines of Jacobo and Marta's dull lives, Herman arrives like a Spring breeze. He's energetic, upbeat, full of corny jokes, even vaguely seductive toward Marta. At his insistence, the trio venture on hour east for a couple of days to the seaside resort of Piriapolis, on the so-called Uruguayan Riviera.Like the run down neighborhood, household and factory inhabited by Jacobo, Piriapolis has also seen better days. The threesome represent about half the audience at a pathetic nightclub where the lead singer is a 12 year old. The only other guests at the hotel seem to be a hick couple of honeymooners from the sticks.Near the end of his visit, Herman gives Jacobo an envelope of cash, guilt money to make up for never having helped care for their mother himself. He urges Jacobo to replace his out of date sock making machines. Jacobo instead tries to blow it all in the casino but fails: in fact, he wins big! Not too many years ago Uruguay was a thriving, economically successful nation, but, not unlike Jacobo and his shabby factory, messy apartment and old car that won't start, it's a place that has fallen on hard times, while its larger neighbors – Argentina to the west and Brazil to the north (represented by Herman), have, relatively speaking, become vibrant economic giants. The film does portray this larger surround in which the characters work out their individual destinies."Whisky," by the way, is the word that the photographers ask the somber Jacobo and Marta to say to evoke grins for their "wedding" picture, like our proverbial "cheese." "Whisky" is one of 10 recent films from developing nations touring in the "Global Lens 2005" series. (In Spanish) My rating: 7/10 (B). (Seen on 04/02/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.