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‘The Other Way Around’ Review: A Charming Madrid-Set Meta-Ode to the Optimistic Fallacy of the ‘Good Break-Up’
Longtime partners self-consciously uncouple in Spanish director Jonás Trueba's "The Other Way Around," a witty, chatty, loopy non-rom-com.
The dogged pursuit of the relationship unicorn that is the good break-up informs the wit and winking wisdom of Jonás Trueba ‘s “ The Other Way Around,” a delightful showcase for the Spanish director’s lithe, airy style, here accented with glistening strands of Madrileño meta-melancholy. Arana and Sanz have superbly believable chemistry as the longtime lovers whose minds may be made up but whose bodies have not yet forgotten their old intimacy, present in how they automatically sit closely on a sofa, or navigate with unconscious grace their neatly dovetailing morning coffee routine. And as the Brechtian elements multiply — Ale’s film, which stars Alex, and is currently at edit stage is inventively conflated with the one we’re watching — Trueba, co-writing with his leads, finds funny-sad new angles of attack on the gentle hubris that is their belief that they are going to be the ones to beat the odds on a break-up minus the bitterness.
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