In
a town like Park City, the evils of time share sales require little
explanation. Alas, poor Pedro could have used a good cautionary talking to. He
paid the nominal membership fee and attended the sales seminar, just so he could
reserve a villa at the Vistamar resort, for a highly discounted rate. However,
the dodgy company double-booked their private pad. Much to Pedro’s dismay, they
will be forced to cohabitate during their “healing” vacation in Sebastián
Hoffman’s Time Share, which screens during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival
in Park City.
If
Time Share were a 1980s Hollywood
comedy, the uptight Pedro might have been played by Tom Hanks and the slovenly
but infinitely shrewder Abel could have been John Candy. Initially, they would
have clashed, but eventually they would have teamed up to teach the nefarious
resort company a lesson. This will not be that film. Instead, the reserved and
somewhat snobbish Pedro starts to suspect Abel and his clan are deliberately trying
to alienate him from his wife and son.
Frankly,
it almost seems like Team Abel and the staff of the Vistamar, now renamed
Everfields by the new American owners, are in cahoots. The only exception is
Andres, a laundry worker increasingly estranged from his wife Gloria, an up-and-coming
member of the sales team. Andres might be the only one more paranoid than Pedro,
partly because he has recently gone off his meds. Still, that does not
necessarily mean either man is wrong about the resort.
Time Share is not a horror
film, but it rests uneasily in the zone of psychological extremity frequented
by Polanski, Solondz, and Aronofsky at their indiest. The paranoia is
definitely contagious. Unfortunately, Pedro is a problematically weak focal
character and Luis Gerardo Méndez never fleshes him out to any great extent.
Frankly, as soon as we meet him, we can’t wait to ditch him.
In
contrast, Miguel Rodarte’s Andres is nearly as reserved, yet deeply unsettling
and completely unpredictable, in a tightly wound sort of way. Yankee RJ Mitte is
just as hard to shake playing Tom, a horrifyingly manipulative sales coach, who
could pass for the sociopathic nephew of Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross.