Watching a friend get scolded by his mother or witnessing a couple’s heated public argument comes with the uncomfortable feeling that one is intruding into a private matter. Those emotional outbursts, often reserved for the eyes and ears of those involved, are amplified by a powerful cinematic voice in director and director Joel Alfonso Vargas’s impressive and wonderfully over-the-top “Crazy Bills to Pay (or Destiny, Del Que. No Malo Soy).” From the short film “May It Go Beautiful For You, Rico” premiering in 2024, “Mad Bills” with title card warning “The Working Man” , a brief stanza that encapsulates the thematic core of Verité’s drama: the tug of war between a person’s agency due to their actions and their powerlessness in the face of the social and economic forces that prevent them from overcoming their precarious circumstances.
Nineteen-year-old Rico (Juan Collado) earns money selling “krakens,” cleverly named, and illegal alcoholic beverages on the beach (Kirby Punch for a bright red concoction, Pikachu Lemonhead for a yellow one). At home, where multiple Dominican labels display the family’s pride in their heritage, tensions flare with his hardworking, understandably present mother (Yohanna Florentino) and his teenage sister Sally (Natalie Navarro) over Rico’s marijuana habit and erratic employment. The family turns more hostile when Rico exposes his 16-year-old girlfriend Destiny Checo. With no other choice, the prospective girl moves in with them.
The characters in “Mad Bills” act with the unabashed impetuosity that people can only show when the cameras aren’t around. Although the intense scenes, whether combat, conservation or romantic, create the impression of a documentary. This feat of authenticity resonates considering that the cast is not composed of non-professionals, but trained actors whose on-screen behavior and exchanges come across as almost identical to reality, rather than a dramatic approximation.
Collado’s initial indifference to Rico blossoms into a layered mixture of the young man’s baseless orality: a comeback of disillusionment, the false solace found in alcohol, glimpses of distorted ideologies on masculinity and the fear of becoming a father while growing up without him without being raised without him. To grow without it and to grow without it. one. These challenging factors converge in Collado’s unflattering depiction in Vargas’s vignettes. Chico, in turn, proves fate with the self-respect and redemption required to stand up to Rico, while Florentino, as the immigrant parent in this family, astounds with her clearly acknowledged expressions of maternal frustration, expressed in an unforgettable Spanish-language performance.
This formidable, unflappable nature of Alvargas is present in the consistent formal parameters he and cinematographer Rufay Ajala use to maintain an intimate perspective. Filmed largely in deliberate, static wide shots, the camera often observes from an angle as if trying not to perceive it. The compositions prioritize the sky to dominate the frame during outdoor shots, continuing Rico’s sense of security against the massiveness of what he trusts. At one point during the confrontation, the camera is shaken, making us aware not only of its presence but of the quality in the acting.
Trying to take responsibility, Rico gets a job with a restaurant cleaning crew, but a soggy routine only highlights the prospect of raising a child, putting a strain on his relationships. He tries, but the path to being a “better” man is far from direct as his worse coping mechanisms and emotional shortcomings take hold. The artful, archly Spanish Spanish portion of the film’s title, “(Or Destiny, del que la malo),” is a hypothetical line of dialogue from Rico’s point of view asking Fate to step in for him and tell their child that, despite all that, he’s not a bad guy.
Steeped in both non-deadly and enjoyable humanity, Vargas’s characters are what some might consider “problematic.” But ultimately they depict complex mindsets, with shades of negative traits and true redemption. Vargas, himself a Dominican-American who grew up in the Bronx, seems eager to make amends for so-called normality by extricating imaginary judgments from men like Rico, caught between external expectations and self-imposed aspirations. Vargas features the voice of popular reggaeton artist Tokischa on the track “Sistema de Patio” as a vocal sample and transition. He follows Rico from one stumble to the next, as if a ghost he caught at a party is now attached to him.
“Mad Bills to Pay” joins films like “Raising Victor Vargas” or “Manito” before it, which depict New York from the perspective of young Latinos from marginalized neighborhoods trying to break out of cycles of poverty and incarceration. The main distinction is that these previous examples, as compelling as they are in themselves, arose from outsiders looking into a community to which they did not belong. Vargas does not visit with an outsider’s gaze to stop a story, but instead performs oblique self-portrayal through characters who are not strangers but could easily live in the apartment next to his. This kind of ingrained understanding of society in a particular geographical field, and the complexities of their struggles, cannot be researched, only witnessed firsthand.