`SPANISH FLY' DOESN'T GET OFF THE GROUND.Byline: Stephen Holden The New York Times Imagine a shrill, charmless 94-minute episode of ``Sex and the City'' set in Madrid with a central character who, like Carrie in that series, is a journalist writing about sex, and you have Daphna Kastner's abrasive comedy, ``Spanish Fly.'' Kastner also stars as Zoe ZOE - Zentrale Oberbauerneuerung (German) ZOE - Zero Energy ZOE - Zone Of Entry ZOE - Zone Of Exclusion ZOE - Zone of the Enders (video game), a whiny, self-absorbed writer for Vanity Fair who has none of Carrie's spunky sweetness. Armed with a contract to complete a book on the myth of machismo, Zoe has traveled to Spain to meet and interview ``macho'' men. On every Madrid street corner, Zoe observes sexy young couples in the throes of passion. But whenever a man flirts with Zoe, she turns surly and hostile. Early in the film she develops an embattled relationship with Antonio (Toni Canto), a handsome, womanizing interpreter who infuriates her by playfully mistranslating her interviewees' remarks. Zoe falls into a frustrating affair with Carl (Martin Donovan), the drippy, mild-mannered owner of an English-language bookstore, but they have no physical chemistry. She is also drawn to Julio (Antonio Castro), a fiery-eyed flamenco guitarist who fancies himself Spain's greatest lover and is so vain that during lovemaking he likes to study his face in a mirror attached to the headboard. Coincidentally Zoe's ex-boyfriend, John (Danny Huston), shows up in Madrid with his men's group, freshly bonded from their rituals in the woods. In the movie's crude, comic swipe at the men's movement, these liberated jerks lurch idiotically through the streets intoning a nonsensical sis-boom-bah-like chant. Eventually, Zoe and Antonio travel to Spain's southern coast, where, it turns out, Zoe's mother met her father, a Spaniard who never married her. At this point the movie turns into a mother-daughter psychodrama 1. A psychotherapeutic and analytic technique in which people are assigned roles to be played spontaneously within a dramatic context devised by a therapist. 2. A dramatization in which this technique is employed. psy  cho·dra·mat conducted by long-distance telephone. Predictably, Antonio turns out to be a much nicer guy than the movie has previously let on. And after all her whining about men being dogs who use and abuse women, the movie's solution to Zoe's malaise is to give her a good noisy roll in the hay with a macho man. The facts The film: ``Spanish Fly'' (R; strong language and several moderately explicit sex scenes). The stars: Daphna Kastner, Toni Canto, Martin Donovan, Antonio Castro, Danny Huston and Marianne Sagebrecht. Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Daphna Kastner. Edited by Caroline Biggerstaff. Music by Mario de Benito.Produced by Juan Alexander. Released by Avalanche Releasing. Running time: One hour, 34 minutes. Playing: Mann's Theatres Westwood 4. Our rating: Two stars. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Martin Donovan plays an English-speaking bookstore owner in Madrid who has an affair with Zoe, a journalist writing about sex (played by Daphna Kastner, who also wrote and directed) in ``Spanish Fly.'' |
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