Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Avelina Prat
Starring: Manolo Solo, Maria de Medeiros, Branka Katić, Rita Cabaço, Xavi Mira
As it approaches with indecent haste I find myself daydreaming about what form my men's mid-life crisis will eventually take. I've never been one for cars, expensive or otherwise, while the idea of training for marathons fills me with a dread far beyond mortality salience, as does the idea of hunting down a younger partner (What would you talk to Gen Z about? Six, seven? The Twilight films?). Maybe I'll go the full Neeson and menace anyone who ever dared cross me (the Taken franchise is the most men's mid-life crisis thing ever), but more likely my attempts to navigate midlife stagnation and increasing irrelevancy would take similar shape to the gently mendacious pastoral odyssey which jilted academic Fernando (Manolo Solo) embarks upon in Avelina Prat's (co-writer Clara Serrano Llorens) The Portuguese House; a retreat from city life into a rustic Portuguese countryside of almond blossom groves, countryside cooking and loving friendship.
"The world is too big. It is chaotic," Geography teacher Fernando advises his lecture class of earnest undergrads as he delivers a lesson on cartography. Meanwhile, a younger woman with a Slavic accent is making the most of this space, as she travels on a bus to somewhere which isn't where she is supposed to be. This is/was Fernando's wife, who covertly disappears from his life, leaving the mystified geographer to follow up scant leads in search of her. The trail leads him to a coastal hotel bar where they serve (be still my connoisseur heart) several different types of port. The careful selection of fortified wines is an indicator of the landscape's pleasures: country living is slower, gentler, there is more time to engage. In Barcelona, Fernando pointedly lives in an apartment, a unit within other units, the streets below busy with footfall from the café which has a direct eyeline to his flat (and will be the locus of the film's Hitchcock-lite subterfuge throughout). Here the space is clean and infinite (we see a suggestive transition of Fernando walking on a bridge that traverses a seaside: a threshold progression), and conducive to conversation, such as the confab Fernando enjoys with barfly professional gardener Manuel (Xavi Mira).
Things hit a snag, however, when Manuel unceremoniously passes away mid-breakfast. Or is it such a problem? In a moment of mid-life madness, Fernando takes the older man's jacket, his wallet, and assumes Manuel's life, arriving at the titular Quinta and passing himself off as the late landscaper. The house is run by spiritous Amalia (Maria de Medeiros, still delicately beautiful, although here minus pot belly: talking about midlife, to look half as good as her at half her age, etc), and completed by cook Rita (Rita Cabaço) and her little boy. What follows is a gentle and quite lovely tale of reinvention and reconnection, set within the restorative milieus of northwest Portugal.
The heavy bucolic of the countryside is lovingly represented within The Portuguese House, with its gardens thick with rosemary and busy kitchen spaces. With characteristically robust national dishes such as salted cod with sliced potatoes, and the heart attack inducing Francesinha sandwich, the Portuguese diet has more in common with the hearty preserves and meat forward menus of Eastern Europe (in stark comparison to neighbouring España's tapas and straight from the sea sardines). There is an emotional weight to this fare (the care, the patience, the abundance), an earthiness which is continued by the homely interactions of Fernando and his new pals (I really appreciated that there is never any tiresome suggestion of romance within the Quinta, the film instead focusing on how friendships blossom and thrive). There is small drama conjured from Fernando's duplicity, within which he is in too far to go over, and his clumsy adaptation to the house and gardens. Santiago Racaj's camera is stately and evokes the blue warmth of the Mediterranean, and as Fernando ekes out his Armin Tamzarian existence, the film settles into a comedic groove as smooth and gentle as an afternoon siesta.
Gentle that is until it transpires that Fernando's wayward wife has possibly returned, and the film enters into a third act diptych which sees our protagonist returning home to confront a different person who has assumed an identity and cuckooed a life. In a pleasing gear-shift, The Portuguese House consolidates its themes of belonging to become an Almodóvar-esque meditation on identity, a mode facilitated by the brightly coloured mise-en-scene of the city. As enjoyable as the mystery is, it is a relief when Fernando resolves to return to the Quinta. It is a reassuring motion which suggests that it is possible for life to begin anew at whatever age.
In a sad postscript, The Portuguese House has a bittersweet resonance in that star Manolo Solo passed away on the eve of the film's release. This film provides a charming and worthy legacy.
The Portuguese House is in UK cinemas from October 2nd.
