Cosas que Hacen la Vida Valga de la Pena

Darker than your average romcom but no less formulaic, Pereira’s return to comedy casts Belén and Fernández as a depressive unemployment clerk and the alcoholic client whose overtures she sceptically accepts. Both divorced parents with hefty baggage, they make for affectingly wary character sketches, attuned to more mature concerns and augmented by Wong Kar-Wai-style rival voice-overs detailing superstitious attention to statistics and minutiae. But the foundation of their attraction remains elusive amid the emotional see-sawing of an overly-schematic plot.