The Valet (2022) Film Review
On the surface, Richard Wong’s The Valet feels too much like something we’ve seen before. Ugly, poor guy who meets someone beautiful, falls in love and that’s it, happily ever after. Fortunately, there’s only a hint of something traditional. Wong is decidedly adamant about the twist he wants the audience to look at from the very beginning. In the beginning, I wasn’t very excited.
How can a script mature in a couple of pages?
The Valet is an English-language remake of a French film. This doesn’t mean that, as a comedy, jokes are the same. The setting is different, cultures are insanely different, and times have changed. It’s how a film like this can stay fresh while being inspired by something we’ve seen before.
That and it stars some familiar faces. It’s the presence of those faces, and I’m not only referring to the leads here, that makes The Valet’s 124 minutes a worthy comedy show. From Samara Weaving in a perfect role, to veteran Mexican actress Carmen Salinas in a fantastic performance about Latino tradition and culture.
The story is very simple. A celebrity is found messing around with a married politician. The scandal is sure to be revealed by paparazzis. Someone gets an idea and this young Hollywood starlet is paired up conveniently with someone who showed up in a picture with the infamous duo. The only problem is this guy is “just a valet”.
This is how Olivia (Weaving) gets a wakeup call about her shallow life and Antonio (Eugenio Derbez) gets a glimpse of Hollywood stardom. Obviously the punchline regards Olivia entering a Latino household with all its jokes, personalities, plates, family traditions and advice. I won’t reveal how this works out for them, but let’s just say it actually works. Two completely opposite lives come together and get the best of them while not being romantically involved with each other. Also, their moments together are incredibly funny.
Add to this a set of secondary characters that feel fresh and never forced in a film with a non-traditional running time. I frowned at first but when I realized, the two hours had gone by and I hadn’t even noticed it. The way the film is paced, allows for the formula to be followed without sacrificing anything and without forcing the viewer to become subject to repetitive and offensive jokes.
It’s where I wanted to arrive. Part of the reason The Valet works has to do with how the Latino culture and traditions are dosed throughout the film without making it an invasive display of punchlines targeted at a certain group and no one else. It’s what I feared the most when some dialogues stayed in Spanish. Nevertheless, this element is spared whenever it’s needed, and The Valet must remain its own film, a comedy about embracing yourself in a world of differences that are argumentative and come from every side.
Cliches can make you laugh. It’s alright if you do. No one said you have to laugh at something someone tells you it’s funny. Decide for yourself. In current times, we’ve become limited to what an authoritative figure tells us to do. Screw them, free your mind, lower your standards and enjoy well produced comedies like The Valet.
