Film My Mexican Shivah Director A.Springall 2007
Any comedy that can combine death, abortion, Jewish ritual and a mariachi band without curdling into complete lunacy deserves a modicum of respect. In the case of My Mexican Shivah, more would be pushing it. What raises this uninhibited hybrid above C level is a director, Alejandro Springall, with a flair for the surreal and a cast that knows its way around a stereotype. Set in a Jewish section of Mexico City, the movie participates in the disastrous mourning of a pleasure-loving paterfamilias (Sergio Kleiner) who has keeled over at a party after one too many horahs. While multiple plotlines and myriad dysfunctions jostle for our attention the obligatory shiksa mistress being only the least of them a pair of wizened Jewish angels tally the deceaseds moral ledger with the creativity of an Enron accountant.