La Máquina stare Gael Bernal-Garcia and Diego Luna

La Máquina (Episode 1) Review

Esteban ‘La Máquina’ Osuna (Gael García Bernal) is a boxer teetering past his prime. We’re introduced to him as he gets ready for a match with a young challenger, and tension and excitement build as he makes his way to the ring. He enters, squares up to his opponent—and the screen goes black. Suffice it to say, he does not emerge in a blaze of glory.

La Máquina, the passion project of Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal, is sharp and stylish, drawing even the least sports-oriented viewers into the world of boxing from the get-go. “What we do is theatre, pure theatre,” Esteban’s coach Sixto (Jorge Perugorría) tells him in a rousing speech before the rematch. People want to see a story play out in the ring, he explains; the fighting itself is almost secondary to the narrative that’s promoted by the managers and the audience. Similarly, although boxing is central to the story, there’s a lot to get invested in outside of the ring.

Esteban’s relationship with his ex-wife Irasema (Eiza González) will be particularly interesting to see play out. When he tries to convince her to give them another shot towards the end of the episode, it feels like a well-worn conversation. They both know it won’t work—exactly why we’re yet to find out—but he puts the idea out there nonetheless. Although González is not heavily featured in the first episode she steals the scenes she does appear in, and the strength of the emotion in her eyes at this point hints at a complex story that, hopefully, will be given the screen time it deserves later in the series.

Esteban is a tragic character, dogged by professional pressure, substance abuse problems, and melancholia that no amount of career success will be able to ameliorate. He’s also suffering from some kind of condition that causes him to briefly slip out of reality, experiencing flickering lights and blink-and-you-miss-it flashbacks, that he is reluctant to tell anyone about. It seems unlikely that he’ll be able to keep it hidden for much longer. Completing the central trifecta, Luna is transformative as Andy, Esteban’s manager and close friend. It’s clear from his first appearance that he’s a man of excess, with a long, montage-worthy morning routine that includes a toupée, makeup, and an array of products that would rival a showgirl. His face is caked in foundation, leaving him an unnatural shade of beige, and his lips are swollen with ill-advised filler.

There’s a “just one more” mentality that he seems unable to escape—and which might just be his downfall. His desire to keep Esteban in the top spot appears to have led him down some nefarious paths if the messages from an as-yet unspecified, menacing group that he keeps receiving are anything to go by. Seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent, they contact him through letters, phone calls, and, most unusually and artistically, through the lyrics on a karaoke machine. Whatever Andy’s got himself mixed up in, it’s not going to be easy to escape—and their demands that Esteban lose his match for the world title put him in an uncomfortable position.

The first episode sees the characters celebrating a win, but if Luna and García Bernal’s warnings are anything to go by, that success isn’t going to last. It’s certain that when Esteban starts to fail when the machine starts to break down, it will be hard to watch. This may not be a happy tale, but the talent, vision, and clear love that those involved have for the project suggest it will be one that’s difficult to turn away from.

★★★★

On Disney+ from October 9th / Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, Eiza Gonzalez / Dir: Gabriel Ripstein


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