When the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film was announced last weekend I was secretly hoping Wild Tales would win. Not because it's a great movie, or even the best out of all the nominees, but because it was dark and silly and twisted in a way the category rarely sees. Plus it's a dreaded anthology, which nobody wants to make anymore because they're so friggin' tough. Just ask the folks behind the awful V/H/S horror franchise. While the film has all of the inconsistencies apparently native to the genre, what it has is a surly attitude, a scathing wit, and a fresh directing voice in Damian Szifron.
Produced by Pedro Almodovar, and gifted with his sardonic sense of humor, Wild
Tales is a series of six vignettes loosely tied together by one theme: vengeance.
An anthology is basically a series of short stories, and the problem is
crafting complete narratives in a limited time frame. Wild Tales has
this problem, too, but not right off the bat. The first story is both the
shortest and the most fulfilling, centering on a fateful airplane flight full
of passengers who share an unfortunate connection. It's a hilarious piece that
hits you in the teeth and makes a promise that the rest of the film tries hard
to keep but turns out to be about 50/50 in execution.
The rest of the shorts are a mixed bag of ever escalating violence
perpetrated by angry people. The second story follows a poor waitress who
encounters a customer who had previously destroyed her family. While she
contemplates murdering the man, a sadistic cook inflames the already-volatile
situation. It works as a breather from the first story, but isn't especially
clever. The third film works best because it's simple and sadistic, following
two men of different social classes involved in a road rage incident that
explodes into a no holds barred melee. The fourth stars Ricardo Darin (The
Secret In Their Eyes), probably the most recognizable face of the entire
movie, as a demolitions expert who lets a parking ticket fuel his hatred for
the governmental power structure.
At this point, Szifron's screenplay has run out of things to say and is
merely coasting by on piss and vinegar. The fifth film, about a rich family
trying to cover up their son's crime, is so dull it drags the rest of Wild
Tales down. However, the sixth and final story is a blast and one that best
could have made a separate film. It follows a just-married couple who have
their wedding reception hilariously destroyed by infidelity. Szifron pulls back
on the savagery just a little to spin an unconventionally sweet story about
forgiveness. 
Two hours turns out to be way too long for Szifron to tug on the vengeance
thread, and Wild Tales could have been amazing if it lost about 45
minutes and maybe two segments. But he knows how to keep things moving, has a
deft hand with comedy, and manages to make each scene feel different from the
rest yet connected as part of the larger whole. That's no small feat for a
young filmmaker, and who knows? Maybe he was showing Almodovar a new trick or
two?
Rating: 3 out of 5
