AFF: 'Adios Mundo Cruel'

With its fart jokes and its fat jokes, Mexican comedy Adios Mundo Cruel is as broad as they come. That's not all it has in common with the cinematic classics.

Written and directed by UT alum Jack Zagha, the film features the eminently watchable Carlos Alberto Orozco as Angel, a good-hearted accountant whose simple desires – to support and enjoy his home, his wife, and his daughter – are thwarted when he is laid off. Unable to tell his wife, Claudia (Ariana Louvier), about his misfortune, Angel spends each day in an increasingly fruitless search for work, suffers a string of comically spun humiliations (including ridiculous job interviews and being saddled with a giant dog, floppy dog he has to take with him everywhere he goes), and eventually joins a gang of buffoonish thieves.

Unlike many comedy directors, Zagha makes sure his narrative debut – which was presented with the festival's Best Narrative Feature award Saturday – has the lush look and careful visual composition to do justice to its largely visual gags. It's a wise choice, and one that makes the most of his cast's physical chops – particularly those of the slightly built Orozco, who can mug, rubber-faced, with a comically large meal or convey the dignity and sweetness of an honorable family man with equal conviction and skill.

Zagha's talents hold the center of this movie in an almost physical manner; like a silent film star, he demands watching and awards unwavering attention. That the script lampoons the arbitrary nature of capitalism's rewards and allies decidedly but lightheartedly with the working (or sometimes non-working) fellow places Adios Mundo Cruel in a classic tradition of political satire – one for the groundlings as well as the scholars.

Adios Mundo Cruel screens Sunday, Oct. 24, 7pm, at Regal Arbor Cinema – Great Hills.