The title of this Spanish drama has less to do with the mechanics of the story than with the expectations of the viewer. Director Antonio Méndez Esparza, adapting a novel, concentrates on the everyday concerns of an average citizen named Lucia (Malena Alterio), a woman of unremarkable appearance, passable social skills, and an attitude of what’s in it for me. Which isn’t to say she’s mercenary or cynical; only that her appetites are the only thing that keep her interested in life. When we meet her, she’s the IT specialist at a company that offers dental plans. Her boss is immediately pegged as a creep when Lucia has lunch with a former colleague who left the company because of some questionable actions on the part of the boss, but those concerns pass under the proverbial bridge when the whole company goes under due to disastrous, possibly illegal investment decisions on the part of management. Lucia is out of a job.

Admitting to herself that she can’t work in an office any more, she studies for a taxi license and uses her savings to purchase a used cab. In the meantime, she makes the acquaintance of a handsome neighbor who lives upstairs in her apartment building. She’s drawn to knock on his door after hearing him play Pavarotti’s rendition of the aria “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot. Not knowing anything about opera, she isn’t clued in when the handsome stranger (Rodrigo Poisón) introduces himself as Calaf, who is the prince in Turandot. Esparza keeps the Turandot references coming for the rest of the movie as Lucia’s romance with Calaf, who turns out to be a theater actor, ends abruptly with no explanation from him. Though we expect Lucia to be destroyed she takes it in stride since she’s worldly enough to understand that sex doesn’t mean as much as people think it does. However, over the coming weeks she meets fares in her cab who have associations with her former lover, and eventually comes to realize that she is somewhat popular among a certain coterie of creative types, which at first flatters her and later makes her wonder if she’s being used. And then her old boss, drunk and abusive as ever, gets into her cab one night and she acts on her sudden feelings of resentment.

Though Something Is About to Happen doesn’t scan as a thriller, its mounting sense of nervous anticipation gets under your skin. The lynch pin is Lucia. It takes time to fall under her charismatic spell since she is not what you would call conventionally beautiful and has a tendency to make up stories about herself. And yet she wields her sexuality with a confidence that’s disarming. In the end, her self-assurance doesn’t save her and she falls off the deep end emotionally. Esparza doesn’t let us stick around long enough to learn if she hits the ground too hard or picks herself up and dusts herself off, but if it’s the latter, you’ll feel sorry for anyone who gets on her wrong side. 

In Spanish. Opens Oct. 31 in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551), Shinjuku Cinema Qualite (03-3352-5645).

Something Is About to Happen home page in Japanese

photo (c) Una Produccion de Que Nadie Duerma AIE-Avanpost