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Movies: I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me (2023) by Fernando Frías: The Writer's Criminal Muse

  • Writer: dailyentertainment95
    dailyentertainment95
  • Nov 12
  • 8 min read

Movie Summary: Literary Ambition Collides with Global Crime

  • Title: Barcelona Noir and the Irony of Unbelievable Truth

  • Summary of Content: I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me is a Mexican-Spanish Crime Thriller/Black Comedy about Juan Pablo Villalobos (Dario Yazbek Bernal), an aspiring Mexican writer who travels to Barcelona to pursue his literature studies. Before leaving Mexico, he is inadvertently swept up in a ruthless international organized crime business connected to the Mexican mafia and the Spanish political/police elite. The film charts his descent into a chaotic world of manipulation and abuse, blurring the line between his terrifying reality and his attempt to turn the experience into a novel. The narrative is defined by its sardonic tone, constantly oscillating between farce, hyperrealism, and tragedy.

  • Movie Trend: Latin American Neo-Noir and Meta-Fictional Crime Thriller. It aligns with the trend of highly stylized, internationally co-produced Latin American films that use crime and corruption narratives to critique global power dynamics and societal rot, often employing dark humor and questioning the reliability of the narrative itself.

  • Social Trend: International Corruption and the Critique of Post-Colonialism. It directly addresses the social trend of revealing the pervasiveness of organized crime and corruption that transcends borders, specifically critiquing the idealized "Old World" (Spain) by showing it to be as rotten as the "New World" (Mexico), reflecting continuing post-colonial power imbalances.

  • Director Info: Directed by Fernando Frías and co-written with Juan Pablo Villalobos and Maria Camila Arias. Frías is acclaimed for his previous success, Ya no estoy aquí, bringing a distinctive voice of authentic Mexican cinema to this complex international story.

  • Major Awards: The film has secured 6 nominations total, indicating early critical recognition on the international festival circuit for its strong script and unique tonal blend.

Why it is Trending: Sarcasm, Surrealism, and Systemic Critique

I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me is trending due to its sardonic, high-concept narrative that is both deeply funny and chillingly relevant to issues of global corruption.

  • Unique Tonal Blend: The film's strength lies in its ability to constantly oscillate between "comedy and tragedy, farce and hyperrealism," providing a fresh, unconventional approach to the crime thriller genre.

  • Director's Follow-Up: It is the highly anticipated follow-up project from Fernando Frías, whose previous work established him as a master of authentic, smart Mexican filmmaking, guaranteeing cinephile interest.

  • Meta-Commentary: The provocative title and the protagonist’s identity as a writer signal a meta-commentary on the nature of belief and storytelling, inviting intellectual engagement from the audience.

  • Transatlantic Critique: The willingness to critique both Mexican drug cartels and the Spanish political/academic elite provides a rare, wide-ranging systemic critique that resonates across Spanish-speaking markets.

Why to Watch This Movie: Intellectual Thrills and High-Wire Pacing

The film is essential viewing for those seeking a crime story driven by intellectual ideas, black humor, and complex narrative layering.

  • Extraordinary Script: The screenplay is praised as "extraordinary" and "clever," successfully weaving together multiple main plots and subplots (the literary journey, the mafia conspiracy, the relationship drama) without losing narrative speed.

  • Chaotic Sarcasm: The film successfully employs "black humour and smart analogies" to deal with tragic events, making the grim subject matter palatable and surprisingly funny.

  • Boundary Blurring: It offers a compelling exploration of the relationship between art and reality, constantly blurring the line between the terrifying situations Juan Pablo is living and the novel he is trying to write about them.

  • Fantastic Performances: The entire ensemble cast is highly praised, especially the leads Dario Yazbek Bernal and Natalia Solián, whose chemistry is crucial to making the chaotic plot emotionally grounding.

What Trend is Followed?: The Meta-Fictional Crime Neo-Noir

The movie follows the specialized trend of the Meta-Fictional Crime Neo-Noir. This genre uses a crime plot as a framework to comment self-reflexively on the nature of truth, storytelling, and the unreliability of the narrator, often mixing realism with absurdist, satirical elements.

  • Art as Reality: The central trope is the writer whose life becomes indistinguishable from his fiction, allowing the film to use the thriller structure to explore intellectual questions about authorship and trauma processing.

  • Transposed Noir: The film follows the trend of transposing the noir aesthetic (the hapless hero sucked into a ruthless underworld) onto a modern, international setting (Mexico/Barcelona) to critique globalized crime.

  • The Sarcastic Voice: The use of a sarcastic, black humor tone aligns with the trend of modern filmmaking that uses comedy to manage and comment on overwhelming societal chaos and political corruption.

Movie Plot: The Student, the Syndicate, and the Sudden Turn

The plot tracks the swift, dizzying descent of the aspiring writer into a criminal underworld:

  • The Ambition: Juan Pablo Villalobos is an aspiring Mexican writer and student who travels to Barcelona to pursue his academic dreams and study literature.

  • The Inciting Incident: Before or shortly after arriving in the Spanish city, he is inadvertently or quickly "involved in a criminal business"—implied to be an insidious, ruthless international organized crime network linked to the Mexican mafia.

  • The Criminal Network: The network involves manipulation and abuse, connecting the Mexican mafia with seemingly refined Spanish political and police officials, challenging the idea that Europe is morally superior to the New World.

  • The Double Life: Juan Pablo attempts to cope with his terrifying situation by turning his life into his novel, constantly blurring the line between his lived experience and his artistic interpretation.

  • The Chaotic Descent: The plot is defined by "tragedie after another" mixed with black humor, taking sudden, dizzying turns that push Juan Pablo toward a "very tragic ending," forcing him to confront the ultimate cost of his involvement.

Director's Vision: Chaos, Irony, and Unflinching Sarcasm

Director Fernando Frías's vision is to use a chaotic, witty, and deeply sarcastic tone to dissect the pervasive nature of systemic corruption and the difficulty of finding authentic truth in a world governed by absurdity.

  • Building Problematic Atmosphere: Frías aims to "build a problematic atmosphere" using all his resources to develop characters and situations, rather than relying on a simple action plot.

  • Thematic Overlap: The direction intentionally "tries to cover a lot of subplots" to show the interconnectedness of corruption, immigration, and academic life, even if this makes it "hard to focus on one" element.

  • Meta-Critique: The vision uses the cynical title (taken from a pornographic film watched early on) as a direct meta-commentary on the audience's role and the unreliability of the story itself.

  • Casting Chemistry: Frías relies on the strong chemistry of the central couple (Bernal and Solián) to provide an emotional anchor amidst the surrounding chaos and sarcasm.

Themes: Truth, Corruption, and The Writer's Dilemma

The central themes are focused on the existential conflict between art and the dark reality it attempts to document:

  • The Unreliability of Truth: The central theme is the nature of belief, derived from the title, questioning the audience and the narrator about what they choose to accept as truth in a corrupted, absurd world.

  • The Pervasiveness of Corruption: The film presents corruption as a pervasive, international entity that operates with impunity, manipulating systems and individuals across continents (Mexico to Spain).

  • Art vs. Reality: It explores the writer's dilemma: the attempt to transform terrifying, raw experience into art (a novel), and the moral and psychological toll this transformation requires.

  • Post-Colonial Critique: The narrative subtly critiques the lingering power dynamics between the "Old World" and "New World," showing how "Old World" Europe is "just as rotten" as the emerging economies it often judges.

Key Success Factors: High Critical Acclaim and Timeliness

The film's success is defined by its intellectual ambition and the strength of its direction and lead performances:

  • Director's Pedigree: Fernando Frías's established reputation provides the film with critical weight and an audience base seeking sophisticated Latin American cinema.

  • Strong Script & Dialogue: The "extraordinary script" and smart dialogues, which alternate between Spanish-speaking characters from all latitudes, are key to its success in the film festival circuit.

  • Tonal Uniqueness: The film's unique ability to oscillate between comedy, farce, and tragedy ensures it stands out as an unconventional and memorable thriller.

Awards and Nominations: Focus on Artistic and Festival Recognition

The film has secured 6 nominations total on the festival circuit, positioning it for continued recognition at major international film festivals in categories such as Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, or Best Ensemble Performance for its complex narrative structure and multi-lingual cast.

Critics reception: Praise for Timeliness and Allegorical Depth

The 21 critic reviews are generally positive, focusing on the film's sophisticated blend of genre and intellectual critique:

  • Quietly Powerful: Critics found the film "Quietly powerful," praising its ability to "stay small and personal to tell a bigger story" about the insidious nature of organized crime.

  • Clever and Sarcastic: The film was celebrated for being "Chaotic, sarcastic and clever," utilizing black humor and smart analogies to navigate complex political and criminal subplots.

  • Transposed Noir: Reviewers recognized the film's successful transposition of the "Mexican film noir train transposed to Barcelona," using the aesthetic to reflect on post-colonial legacies.

Reviews: Polarizing Audience Reaction Driven by Execution

  • IMDb User Rating: The film holds a moderate user rating of 5.8/10 from 744 votes. This score reflects the polarization common with abstract or tonal films: audiences who appreciate the intellectual ambition and sarcasm rate it highly (8/10), while those who find the opening dreary or the multiple subplots confusing rate it low (4/10).

  • The Pacing Critique: User reviews noted the pacing "might be slow" at times, particularly in the beginning, and that Frías "tries to cover a lot of subplots" which challenged the focus of the viewing experience.

Release dates: Theatrical Release Date, Release Date on Streaming

Theatrical release date: November 22, 2023 (United States). Release date on streaming: Currently available on Netflix (indicated by the IMDb Official Netflix tag).

What Movie Trend film is following: Meta-Fictional Crime Thriller

The film is following the specialized movie trend of the Meta-Fictional Crime Thriller, using the protagonist's identity as a writer and the highly sarcastic tone to blur the lines between his terrifying lived experience and the story he is trying to create, thereby commenting on the nature of belief and artistic truth.

What Big Social Trend is following: The Globalized Network of Corruption

The big social trend the film is following is the Globalized Network of Corruption that links organized crime, political elites, and seemingly legitimate institutions across international borders. It highlights the pervasive, inescapable nature of this rot, particularly critiquing post-colonial power imbalances.

What Consumer Trend is following: Demand for Sarcastic and Intellectually Ambitious Thrillers

The consumer trend followed is the Demand for Sarcastic and Intellectually Ambitious Thrillers. Audiences are attracted to crime films that are not only suspenseful but also offer black humor, smart analogies, and complex philosophical themes, rewarding intellectual engagement with an unconventional narrative experience.

Final Verdict: A Clever, Sarcastic, and Unsettling Transatlantic Noir

I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me is a clever, unsettling transatlantic crime thriller that brilliantly blends black comedy and hyperrealism to expose the seamless, globalized network of corruption linking Mexico and Spain. Driven by Fernando Frías's sharp direction and the meta-fictional premise, the film offers a powerful, sarcastic commentary on the difficulty of finding truth and authenticity when reality itself reads like a chaotic, unbelievable crime novel.

Key Trend highlighted – The successful execution of a meta-fictional crime thriller that uses sarcasm and narrative confusion to critique the pervasive nature of transnational political and organized crime.

Key Insight – The film demonstrates the profound irony of the writer's existence: that in a world of rampant deception, the most terrifying and accurate accounts of reality are often the ones no one expects or chooses to believe.

Similar movies: Psychological Thrillers of Deception and Passion

  • Ya no estoy aquí (2019): Directed by Fernando Frías, this film similarly uses a protagonist marginalized by the Mexican environment to explore themes of identity, social belonging, and music.

  • Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014): A film that blends hyperrealism and meta-fiction, focusing on an actor's internal chaos as he tries to transform his difficult reality into meaningful art.

  • Amores Perros (2000): An acclaimed Mexican drama that uses a car crash as a catalyst to connect three seemingly unrelated, violent, and morally ambiguous stories set in the crime-ridden streets of Mexico City.


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