‘The Crooked Lines of God’: everything you expect from Oriol Paulo, no more, no less

The flag tour. This is the dynamic cinematic style with which Oriol Paulo has conquered so many theater and streaming audiences, nationally and internationally with blockbusters in China. He was also requested again by two major production companies such as Warner and Atresmedia after supporting him in his successful ‘Contratiempo’ and the latest ‘During the storm’. Director perhaps as popular but at the same time serious as the best candidate to adapt a book even more known as ‘The crooked lines of God’, in cinemas on Thursday 6 October. In his fourth film, the Catalan director borders on the danger of repeating his keys too much to build a very solid work, the greatest of his career but also the most classic.

A lot of work and (perhaps too much) personality

The recent premiere of ‘Dune’ has already revived the term unsuitable novel that could also be given to this record of mental illnesses published by the journalist Torcuato Luca de Tena in 1979. As well known as it is long, the work tells the story of detective Alice Gould and his alleged investigation into a murder in a psychiatric hospital. In addition to repeating with his usual co-writer, Lara Sendim, Oriol Paulo also counted on Guillem Clua to perfect the book as much as possible, as the latter taught. on his Twitter account. This is just another proof that, With Oriol Paulo, the solid storyline of an arthouse film and the entertainment of a blockbuster can go hand in hand. In this way he gets a broad representation of the states of madness within an intrigue similar to “Shutter Island” with a visual range like “The Shining”.

That study of insanity so explicit in the novel was a challenge saved with a lot of work, but of course it’s overwhelming. The team worked with industry professionals and staff from the Mental Health Observatory of Catalonia to contextualize the plot; but in the end, it comes down to whether the protagonist is crazy or not. In this regard, die-hard fans of the book may be somewhat disappointed as, in general, “The Wrong Lines of God” is more an Oriol Paulo film than a tailor-made adaptation of the novel or a study on the symptoms of mental illness. There are some exceptions, such as the best scene of the film where the director of the center (Eduard Fernández) issues a specialized diagnosis very intelligently transferred to the screen by the director with a creative visual and sound montage.

Madness is very well represented, but it’s not a crazy movie or about those diseases. You don’t learn more about them, but you see them. In this great leap in the scale of his filmography, Paulo fills a gigantic staging of secondary characters and extras constantly involved in their illnesses, even if only in the background. Casting is one of the best assets in the film and worth seeing on the big screen.: wherever you look, there is always a crooked line that upsets you. But the film is not about them; They are a good context, but stay on that: a narrative resource that sets the mood so that the true center of the narrative shines. In this case, Alice Gould, or whatever, one of the best actresses of our audiovisual industry and almost of cinema in general: Bárbara Lennie.

Alice’s madness and Barbara’s talent, worthy of study

Despite all that work with the novel, the director has already confessed to us in his exclusive interview with eCartelera that he had to define the focus of his film; in this case, the investigation into Alice Gould and the debate about her sanity. Consequently, as the posters suggest, Bárbara Lennie is the iron center around which the entire film revolves. It is no longer an enigmatic memory as in ‘Contratiempo’. Thanks to her, the disorder of paranoia and compulsive lying is the only one that is represented in great detail through shots and dialogues. Goya’s winner for ‘Magical Girl’ tries to repeat the award with a beautiful dance between the blurred limits of insanity and sanity. Although his identity journey is too reminiscent of the innocent vs guilty of his partner Mario Casas in “Contratiempo”, his performance is completely devoid of clichés and exaggerated extremes of being very rational or very irrational. Lennie invites her to dance to this ambiguity and analyze very closely in many superb close-ups and medium shots whether all that magnetism stems from her intelligence or her pathology.. But whatever the case may be, you can’t stop watching.

At the very opposite extreme is Eduard Fernández’s doctor, perhaps too bluntly defined with a fixed position; this makes you be the flattest and least versatile character when it comes to acting (which doesn’t stop his performer from shining what you can). This leaves the grayscale and doubts the young and talented Loreto Mauleón, who reminds us that her acclaimed role in “Patria” was no exception. Both have fairly minor roles, but they provide entertainment and perspective as the viewer draws up their verdict on Alice. Those pause times are also necessary.

Already with “El Inocente”, the miniseries shot shortly before “Los Renglones Torcidos de Dios”, Oriol Paulo has gone from an epic drama of two or three characters to an entire network of relationships. Despite Lennie’s reign, this is a very ensemble film that allows some secondary characters to shine, such as Pablo Derqui (“Dos”) or the great revelation that is Samuel Soler in a fantastic double role.. Although the pathologies of both are a little more drawn, in the end its main function is that of a mere subplot necessary to be used also obviously in the final twists. Being too exploited, the supporting actors fill the two and a half hours without much narrative content (not visual), which is a bit long. Her textures almost all of the footage look like a fill that isn’t needed until the very end. Although they are portrayed with great fidelity and respect, the same thing happens to these subplots patients with regard to the interesting historical context on the Transition: none of this is kept separate. and they are remembered more as a narrative tool than as a solid story; they are a means to an end.

Those grays are a consequence of the risk of not performing a standard fit. Oriol Paulo did not limit himself to tracing the novel into a narrative twist devoid of personality. ‘Los Renglones Torcidos de Dios’ releases the clear personality of its director in terms of script, editing, relationships … he had already anticipated much more ambitious scale and narrative structure. But precisely for this reason that personality is exactly the same as we have already seen in his previous works; intense like them, almost equaling their resources, but not improving them. The style works, yes, but the danger of repeating keys with no novelty in them or without the risk of the ‘During the storm’ genre, for example, is too much warned. We are no longer newbies in the cinema of this great Spanish director, and “Los Renglones Torcidos de Dios” more than meets the expectations of Oriol Paulo’s label more than enough not to mean a step back, even if it doesn’t mean a revolution forward like all of his previous projects..

Note: 7.

The best: Bárbara Lennie’s tour de force, sublime is not enough.

Worse: Plot development and surprises are the director’s most standard and repetitive.