'Sólo Con Tu Pareja'

Comments (0) By Michael Atkinson Tuesday, Sep 12 2006

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S�lo Con Tu Pareja
Directed by Alfonso Cuar�n
IFC, opens September 20, IFC Center

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The buzz arising from Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También, his franchise-high-water work with Harry Potter, and the upcoming Children of Men has apparently been loud enough to pull his first, 15-year-old Mexican feature to the U.S.-distribution surface. Sometimes the culture's natural selection is on the money the first time around—Sólo Con Tu Pareja (Love in the Time of Hysteria, 1991) is a tame yet over-the-top screwball romance centering on a helpless womanizer (Daniel Giménez Cacho) who gets caught bouncing between sex with two women, in two apartments. Their revenge includes a falsified AIDS test, just as our hero fixates on yet another woman who he believes will save him from his sorry ways. Pushing the dull Cacho as a chick magnet capable of opening any pair of legs suggests that Cuarón's respect for women has gained serious ground since he was 29. The film is more stale than crisp, with dialogue that is at least 50 percent old aphorisms, homilies, and clichés. The frankness and sophistication of Y Tu Mamá were, it seems, hard earned.