SLEEP TIGHT

Cesar is the doorman of an apartment building in the heart of Barcelona, but Cesar has a problem: he cannot stand that the people around him are happy. Thus, the man has set himself the task of making the residents' lives a nightmare and has particularly targeted Clara, a beautiful thirty-year-old woman whom the man visits every night. But when Clara's boyfriend moves in with the girl, the situation radically complicates. "Bed Time" - a more suggestive Italian title for the more evocative "Mientras duermes" - confirms the already evident tendency of director Jaume Balagueró to set terrible events in usually hospitable and familiar places like apartment complexes. The fact that Balagueró prefers closed places to unleash horror was already clear in his previous works, from the unsettling "Nameless" and "Darkness" to "Fragile," which told the sad story of a haunted hospital. Then, the apartment building turn comes with "[Rec]," directed with his colleague Paco Plaza, which makes the literally closed environment of the building a deadly trap, a discourse reiterated with "[Rec]2" and "Affittasi." The focal point of this narrative line is clearly to bet on the anxiety that can derive from the familiarity of a place that is generally considered safe and protective, where everyone knows each other and grows up making the first social experiences. The apartment building as a social microcosm, which in Balagueró's dimension is fraught with insidious traps masked by everyday life; and in this perspective, the high concept of "Bed Time" is particularly effective because it pushes a step further, namely the violation of the most intimate spaces: from the apartment building to one's own apartment and from there to the bedroom, moreover framed at the moment of maximum vulnerability of the one who occupies it, that is, during the hours of nighttime rest. A bit like in "Paranormal Activity," "Bed Time" shows the potential threats that can catch us in our bedroom, threats that personify in the figure of a manic doorman, a seemingly reassuring and kind man, just like the environment he takes care of, but who in reality hides an ipodermic resentment that extends perpetually to everything around him. And the figure of Cesar, played by an excellent Luis Tosar ("Cella 211"), is one of those that strike and are remembered. His hatred towards happy people is exemplary: for Cesar, happiness does not exist, his life is a continuous disappointment - mostly self-induced - and if he cannot be well, neither can others and the only way to live is to make the everyday life of those who smile unlivable. Cesar's is a mission, which over the course of the weeks focuses on the odious joy of living of Clara - played by the beautiful and fascinating Marta Etura ("Eva") - , an inevitable catalyst of his sexual desires. Cesar establishes with Clara a morbid relationship that is built on annihilating and unconscious nighttime rapes, clearly destined to generate extreme consequences. The most original and successful aspect of Cesar's character lies in his awareness of doing harm, which becomes a goal and is built on Machiavellian plans: Cesar is the evil proud to be so. Screenwriter Alberto Marini ("I delitti della luna piena"; "Affittasi") thus builds a script of great value, coherent and with very well characterized characters. Balagueró puts his usual professionalism and manages to make the subject his own by adapting it to a personal discourse on the family dimension of evil. The only unconvincing point in an otherwise very successful film is the long sequence in Clara's apartment where Cesar tries not to be noticed by the tenants, producing a series of grotesque scenes that seem to have come out of a cartoon or an Italian comedy from the 80s. A jarring choice that nevertheless does not detract from the charm that a film like "Bed Time" manages to emit, especially in relation to a truly successful ending. Curiously, "Bed Time" comes out simultaneously with "The Resident," an American production with Hilary Swank and Jeffrey-Dean Morgan that deals with a very similar theme to the Spanish film, with the difference that Spain wins 10-0. It deserves half a pumpkin more.