{"id":609185,"date":"2026-09-08T02:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T02:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/609185\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T02:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T02:26:11","slug":"hombre-al-agua-review-gael-garcia-bernals-chaotic-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/609185\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Hombre Al Agua’ Review: Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal’s Chaotic Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe winning combination of whimsy, gravitas and good looks that Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal has brought to both the big (Amores Perros, Y tu mam\u00e1 tamb\u00eden<\/a>) and small (Mozart in the Jungle) screens fails to translate to his second stab as director, Hombre Al Agua, an offbeat dramedy that\u2019s too chaotic and muddled to hit its marks.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor, who wrote the script with Mariano Pensotti, does double duty as star and helmer in this overcooked story of a Cuban lifeguard who becomes the right-hand man to a Mexican business tycoon, only to have his life quickly unravel because, well, that\u2019s what these quirky dramedies do. The film strains for laughs and meaning despite a good cast that\u2019s easy on the eyes, even if they play characters who seldom feel like real people. After its premiere in the Venice<\/a> Spotlight sidebar, Hombre should make headways in Latin America but will have a harder time navigating international waters.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tHombre Al Agua\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tAn offbeat passion project without much purpose.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: Venice Film Festival (Venice Spotlight)
Cast: Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal, Esmeralda Pimentel, D\u00e9bora Nascimento, Natalia Oreiro, Anna D\u00edaz, Manuel Garc\u00eda Rulfo, Jorge Salinas, Ricky Martin
Director: Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal
Screenwriters: Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal, Mariano Pensotti
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 56 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe title translates to \u201cman overboard,\u201d which applies to both the topsy-turvy tone the actor gives his third feature after his more restrained 2019 debut drama, Chicuarotes<\/a>, as well as to his new movie\u2019s inciting incident. Following a rather hilariously botched opening sex scene between Cuban \u00e9migr\u00e9 Camilo (Bernal) and his pro athlete wife Juana (Esmeralda Pimentel), we flash back to see how Camilo went from being a lonely lifeguard on Cuba\u2019s Varadero Beach to a successful father and businessman after saving scion Don Abel (Jorge Salinas) from drowning, marrying the man\u2019s daughter soon after. Now he lives on his boss and father-in-law\u2019s bodacious country estate in Yucat\u00e1n, helping Juana take care of their baby daughter and managing a factory that holds a monopoly on zip ties.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe set-up is fast and the humor on the wacky side, like a Coen brothers flick minus their mastery of narrative rhythm, which here remains erratic throughout. Lots of crazy things start happening to Camilo, beginning with the breakdown of his marriage as Juana gets too close to a striking Brazilian actress, Fabiana (D\u00e9bora Nascimento), whom she\u2019s training to portray a professional pole vaulter onscreen. Meanwhile, Don Abel gets hit by a truck and confidentially asks Camilo to take care of his pregnant Argentine mistress Silvana (Natalia Oreiro), whom he tucks away on the estate for most of the film. Things are also coming apart at Camilo\u2019s factory, where he\u2019s forced to lay off a chunk of the staff.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor-director tosses all he can at his protagonist without much logic, in what feels like a rudderless midlife crisis scenario that never finds a strong throughline. It\u2019s hard to know what the unifying principle is in Hombre Al Agua, aside from Bernal surrounding himself with three beautiful women \u2014 and one beautiful man in the form of Ricky Martin, who makes a fun cameo \u2014 in a beautiful location.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe seems to be having a good time, flexing a Cuban accent and his usual charms to play a decent man who\u2019s desperately hanging onto a privileged life that fell into his lap. There\u2019s some running social commentary in the film about the Mexican class divide, whether it involves Don Abel\u2019s complete disregard for his workers or Juana prancing around like a spoiled princess in gym wear, but such observations rarely dip below the surface. A black-and-white Brazilian telenovela, starring Fabiana as the wife of a blue-collar rebel, constantly plays in the background but doesn\u2019t leave much of a mark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAt best, Hombre Al Agua is a passion project in which the Mexican star dishes out some thoughts on fatherhood, masculinity and moral purpose. But tighter scripting and less mayhem would have helped make his message heard, instead of diluting it with too many shenanigans. \u201cThis is like a bad sitcom,\u201d Camilo exclaims at a point when things really get silly, and you can\u2019t help wondering if Bernal is saying aloud what we\u2019ve all been thinking. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The winning combination of whimsy, gravitas and good looks that Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal has brought to both the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,213559,85,46,397,11652,241229,2623,274155],"class_list":["post-609185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-gael-garcia-bernal","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies","tag-venice","tag-venice-2026","tag-venice-film-festival","tag-venice-film-festival-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}