Review: Las Piladoras De Mi Novio

Release date: February 21, 2020
Running time: 100 minutes
Starring: Jaime Camil, Sandra Echeverría, Jason Alexander

After a series of men who fell just short, Jess (Echeverria) is looking for the perfect man when she finds Hank (Camil), who appears to tick all her boxes.  The relationship goes so well that she invites him to a weekend island getaway that Jess's work is putting on.  However, what Jess doesn't know is that although Hank appears calm and collected, he actually suffers from a number of mental conditions and uses medication to balance all this out.  But a packing mishap causes him to forget his pills, leading to an unpredictable and hilarious weekend retreat.

Although the movie starts off with a somewhat serious dating sequence, this film is a comedy through and through.  Once Hank is off his meds, he completely changes and as a result, causes a lot of wild antics.  Camil does a great job as Hank, and goes to great lengths to get a laugh or truly make a situation ridiculous.  Echeverria is sympathetic as Jess, and her reactions to the shenanigans of her boyfriend are fun to see.  This movie has a strong cast and Jason Alexander in particular was a welcome surprise.  He plays Hank's therapist and although he is not on the screen much, he is fun to see; it is the perfect Jason Alexander role!  The movie has plenty of other quirky characters that Hank and Jess meet along the way and they all have different and funny reactions to Hank's antics. 

Hank's conditions are exaggerated mental conditions, and the way that he mixes and matches them are enjoyable for the screen, but probably not the most accurate or sensitive depictions of mental illness.  If you are going to this movie, I doubt you will be that concerned about a film's ridiculous treatment of mental illness, but it is just something to keep in mind.  When they list his phobias, some are inherently contradictory (by design I imagine), and they seem to come in and out when convenient.  For example, one of the phobias is agoraphobia, yet he spends most of the movie outside.  The story moves at a decent pace, and I never felt like I was bored, but it also seems like Hank's ordeal was over too quickly.  It would have been nice to have a few more awkward, ridiculous situations to experience.  And although the overall lesson of this film is a good one, it doesn't approach that with a lot of care or real world grounding.  

Las Piladoras De Mi Novio has a spirited performance by Jaime Camil providing plenty of ridiculous situations and laugh out loud moments.   

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