Ángela Castilla
Yao and Moroccan Rachid arrive illegally in Valencia, Spain, and separate. Yao sells pirated DVDs in the street and wanders disconsolately around the barrio until he glimpses divorcee Maria Luisa working in her boutique. High-strung and irritable, Maria lives with her gay son, Rober, who, like many other things in life, is a disappointment to her. Rachid, meanwhile, is doing just fine working as a hairstylist in a beauty salon; Rober is hopelessly in love with him. When Yao starts sleeping in Rober's flat, a confrontation between him and Maria suddenly becomes inevitable, and when it comes, what could have been an embarrassment is actually handled with grace.
The story is told using non-linear flashbacks during the court case that determined her fate, giving us a detached and non-judgemental portrait of Nina, a lonely child of a carefree single mother. Having never had a father figure, she seeks affection through older men before she falls in love with a younger man called Sergio, an apprentice under her husband Miguel. The film highlights various episodes from her life, culminating in the murder of her lover, and the apparent cannibalism that follows.
For this second film in the cult comedy series Torrente takes our fat police officer from Madrid to Marbella in Spain to investigate a villain’s plot to destroy the city with a missile. This James Bond style slapstick comedy became the most successful box-office film in Spanish film history beating out only the first Torrente film.
