Manuel Tamayo Prats lives in a bubble. His old maid Celsa manages both his house and his (rather meager) bank account, and he has a select circle of friends and a wider circle of admirers who read his food reviews and books with interest. Manuel is on the verge of old age, but his smart clothes, caramel-colored glasses, sharp tongue, and independent thinking make him feel like he’s always the same, no matter how old he is, as if he’s not passing the time. Time. But the bubble bursts when Celsa suddenly dies and he has to face the practical aspects of life, from shopping to finding a chauffeur for his old Mercedes.
Manuel is the central character of Nada, the miniseries (five episodes) recently released on Disney+ and in which Luis Brandoni, Argentine actor and politician, stars very successfully. Nada was created by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, the duo behind The Manager, another hugely successful series with its second season premiering soon. Also involved is Robert de Niro, a legendary actor if there ever was one. Cohn and Duprat explained to EL PAÍS in a recent interview the genesis of this collaboration and the series, which they define as a tribute to the city of Buenos Aires. In fact, De Niro (transformed into the writer Vincent Parisi) presents each chapter with an emphasis on the linguistic peculiarities of Buenos Aires (the meaning and meaning of the words “boludo” and “pelotudo,” for example) and on the gastronomic.
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But apart from his undoubted appeal, the American actor contributes little to the series, whose main interest lies in the character of Manuel Tamayo, a guy far from exemplary, as was the case with Eliseo from “The Manager”, who is capable , to give him a hard time accusing him of racism, to the owner of a restaurant who, outraged by a negative review, intends to charge him for the menu. Or you end an old friendship after a bitter argument that bruised your ego. Protected in his world, flattered by journalists who want to interview him, Manuel has been collecting advances from his publisher for years for a book that he has not even begun to write. A harsh food critic, contemptuous and somewhat deified, we are actually dealing with a character who knows little about life and who is taught a real lesson by an aspiring successor to the late Celsa. This young maid Antonia, a Paraguayan looking for a better life in Buenos Aires, awakens Manuel from his lethargy, but adds some barely believable good-natured traits to the character that weaken the story somewhat. In return, the series offers masterful moments of realism, such as the protagonist’s conversation (who can finally use a cell phone) via WhatsApp with his London-based daughter, through which a disdainful grandson appears, or his misadventure paying for groceries in the supermarket . First with a card in the late Celsa’s name, then with his own, whose PIN number he doesn’t know. As a loser, Manuel will still find his way and write his book, although this new phase is at the mercy of everyone’s imagination.
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