NEWPORT BEACH FILM FESTIVAL 2020 REVIEW! Alonso Llosa’s comedy La Restauración takes on aging and the elderly, while set in a gentrifying Peruvian city during the housing market boom in the mid-aughts. Wow, that’s a mouth full.
The mid-2000s saw a boom in housing ownership around the world. This was particularly true in Peru. Old historic homes were being torn down by real estate investors and, in its place, grew multi-unit apartments and condominiums. In other words, the family home you grew up in is now eaten up by inevitable gentrification.
“…he concocts a scheme to drug his mother… and sell the house to his friend for the big windfall.”
La Restauración follows 50-year-old Tato (Paul Vega), who, after a devastating divorce, now lives in his lavish childhood home still owned by his elderly mother, Rosa (Attilia Boschetti). The lazy Tato is so depressed he can’t find a job or look for one, so his disabled mother throws him an occasional bone, knowing full well that he’s going to use it on cocaine.
That night, Tato is invited to a party by his real estate developer friend and hints that his mother’s home is worth millions. Tato knows that his mother would never sell her precious home. As good sons do, he concocts a scheme to drug his mother, transfer her to a “box” in the middle of the desert designed and decorated to look like her bedroom, and finally sell the house to his friend for the big windfall.
"…a few harsh words to say about gentrification and greed."
