By Tim Carpenter
Special to the Daily News

A film certainly can pull out all the stops. Computer graphics. Enhanced sound. Even completely digitized characters. So it’s kind of nice when a film is simple: simple plot, simple story.

The film A BOYFRIEND FOR MY WIFE (UN NOVIO PARA MI MUJER) does not have any fancy special effects. It does not have enhanced sounds. And the characters are 100-percent all-natural.

But the simple story about the failing marriage of a married couple in does not suffer from any lack of special effects. It’s the dialogue, the story, and the characters that make this Argentine film tick.

A BOYFRIEND FOR MY WIFE
Noon, Monday, November 3rd @ ArcLight Hollywood 13

Tenso (Adrian Suar) and his wife, Tana (Valeria Bertuccelli) are having serious marital problems. You know it’s not a great relationship when the movie starts with the couple at a therapist’s office. Therapy is the typical way to fix a failed relationship.

But Tenso takes it a lot farther. He spends most of his days complaining about his wife to his soccer buddies. So, after hearing this for the umpteenth time, his friends steer him to “El Cuervo Flores.” This is some sort of gigolo hired to take the wife out to somehow spice up the relationship. Cuervo is not the typical pretty-boy gigolo but a middle-aged Don Juan type.

Tana is not an easy pill to swallow. She complains nonstop about everything, kind of in a monotone voice. She complains so well that Tenso’s friend hires her to complain on the radio every morning. But Tenso believes Cuervo Flores can somehow break her out of the doldrums.

It works so well that Cuervo eventually falls in love with her. But Tenso also has regained his love for his wife. Obviously, it was not a good idea to hire a gigolo to help a relationship. But in a weird twisted way, it may be what was best for Tenso and Tana.

Director Juan Taratuto seems to like black comedies. This is his third comedy after WHO SAYS IT’S EASY (QUIEN DICE QUE ES FACIL) and IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S ME (NO SOS VOS, SOY YO). Bertuccelli and Suar seem to show on-screen chemistry even while showing how incompatible their relationship has become. After opening just this past August, this black comedy has been one of the highest grossing films in Argentina.