Everybody Has a Plan

Brooding, bleak and atmospheric thriller, Everybody Has a Plan drifts rather strangely to its denouement. Argentinian director Ana Piterbarg’s pivitol line “There’s evil in all of us, that’s just how it is” leaves the viewer feeling as lost as the characters in the swampy banks of the film’s Tigre River.

Viggo Mortensen is the star, playing middle-aged twin brothers Agustín and Pedro, one of whom assumes the identity of the other, and is extremely compelling as both. Speaking fluent Spanish having spent some of his childhood in Buenos Aires, Mortensen portrays the successful but depressed doctor Agustín, who resides in the city in contrast to his shady, cancer-suffering brother Pedro, who still dwells in the Tiger Delta where they grew up. When Pedro visits Agustín, both their lives take a sudden and shocking turn; the latter heads back to his childhood home to take up his brother’s dark and secretive life. This seems to be a process of confronting his own inner demons, though it’s not really apparent why he stays when this new lifestyle choice becomes increasingly violent. The only explanation seems to be that Agustín does not have a plan.

It is an interesting concept that this educated doctor does not feel that he has a role to play, unlike each of the bees he tends to in his brother’s beehive, or the local bruisers who hatch kidnapping plans to make money. But this concept isn’t developed in enough detail. The viewer is left feeling underwhelmed and bemused that the hole in Agustín’s life is suddenly filled by the 22-year-old ”baby” Rosa (Sofía Gala Castaglione), who also spells disaster for him.

If you enjoy suspended arthouse realism with sudden outbreaks of unexplained violence, and are a big Viggo Mortensen fan, you’ll enjoy the ease with which he moves through this tense and seemingly unplanned narrative.

Emily May

Everybody Has a Plan is released in selected cinemas on 31^st May 2013.

Watch the trailer for Everybody Has a Plan here: