Review by Stephanie Scaife
It was somewhat of a relief when I sat down to watch The Body as it turned out to be one of those rare instances when a screener you receive actually turns out to be pretty good. After opening Sitges last year and screening at The London Film Festival, The Body has finally made its way to DVD and Blu-ray in the UK. The first feature film directed by Oriol Paulo, whose previous credits include screenwriting duties on Julia’s Eyes, this is a tense and overwrought thriller in the vein of Brian De Palma that twists and turns it way through a gripping, if at times convoluted, plot to its unexpected conclusion.
The film starts well, hooking you in from the get-go as the corpse of extremely wealthy business tycoon Mayka Villaverde (Belén Rueda) mysteriously disappears from the morgue, with the sole witness being a security guard that fled the scene only to be hit by a car. He’s now in a coma, leaving Detective Jaime Peña (José Coronado) and his team to try and figure out exactly what happened, the starting point being Mayka’s young widower Álex Ulloa (Hugo Silva) who seems miraculously unfazed by his wife’s sudden death. The Body takes place over the course of one night and is intercut with flashbacks that gradually offer insight into Mayka and Álex’s relationship; as well as the run up to her death which we learn very early on was carefully engineered by Álex and his girlfriend Carla (Aura Garrido). This revelation early on lets you know that nothing is going to be as you expect with this film. My initial expectation was that it would be a straightforward whodunit, but as the film progresses you realise that all your preconceptions about the genre are being cast aside. This works to a certain extent, especially in terms of holding your interest and continuously surprising you with each turn it takes; however, it does by the end have the faint whiff of perhaps trying just a little too hard, dipping it into the realms of fantasy when sometimes something unexpected becomes something unbelievable.
Belén Rueda (The Orphanage) is fantastic as the overbearing and controlling Mayka, portraying her as both sympathetic and loathsome in a complicated performance that could easily have fallen flat in the hands of a lesser actor. I found myself both rooting for her and wishing for her demise in equal turns, an emotion that surely mirrors the dilemma of her tormented young husband Álex, who himself earns our sympathy in the face of his relationship with Mayka who is domineering and possessive; yet seeking solace in the arms of an attractive young student ensures that he acts selfishly and rashly. I find great enjoyment in a film where the characters are not black and white, as in life there is nobody who is one or the other, and those shades of grey (although perhaps treading into the realms of melodrama here at times) make the characters more realistic and unpredictable due to our familiarity with more straightforward and clear cut narratives.
Where The Body falls foul is in its heavy handed soundtrack that is about as subtle as a flashing sign being brought into frame stating “something bad is about to happen…” And the final few minutes really stretched the realms of what is plausible, even in terms of a genre film, but overall you could do a lot worse than The Body if you’re in the mood for something that’s going to keep you guessing until the very end.
The Body is out now on Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray from Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment.