“Mad Bills to Pay,” the first feature from writer-director Joel Alfonso Vargas, is undeniably a movie for cinephiles. The aspect ratio is square, with rounded corners to send home that filmic feeling. Rufai Ajala’s cinematography is gorgeous. The opening shot is of the historic Loew’s Paradise Theatre in the Bronx. But the same way that literary novels in which the languishing protagonist lopes from page to page are rarely pleasant to read, no matter how polished, this tale of relentless male mediocrity soon becomes grating to watch.
“The working man is a sucker,” an opening intertitle announces, and that certainly seems to be the motto of Rico (Juan Collado, “Ghosts of Fort Greene”), the hapless lead of “Mad Bills to Pay.” He’s content to hawk nutties (illegal, home-brewed cocktails) at the beach, but seems allergic to any lifestyle that might disrupt his ability to drink and smoke weed whenever he pleases. Despite the film title, he is never seen paying a bill — not even after he gets a 16-year-old pregnant. He lives at home with his mom (Yohanna Florentino, “Dark Seed”) and teenage sister, Sally (Nathaly Navarro, “Brownsville Bred”). When the mother of his child, Destiny (electric newcomer Destiny Checo), moves in, he starts feeling added pressure to shape up.
Listen, Rico is a 19-year-old guy in a machismo-ridden culture (the Bronx’s Dominican community) with no dad and a shift-worker mom who’s as loving as she is prone to yelling. You could say he’s working with what he’s got. But “Mad Bills to Pay” goes out of its way to depict him as pigheaded in contrast to the women in his life, making his intransigence increasingly harder to stomach. Destiny is far from perfect herself, but she’s asking the right questions: Why should they keep this baby? How will they provide for it? She intends to go back to school and eventually study business; Rico sees this as a blight on his manhood. His mom is against the whole thing from the beginning, though she lets Destiny stay with them after her parents kick her out. There’s one particularly interesting exchange in which Destiny says Rico doesn’t want to vaccinate their child, and all three women admonish him. Rico is unmoved and annoyed at Destiny for questioning him in front of his family.
It’s hard to tell a compelling story where the characters don’t change, and Rico’s trajectory is one long downhill slope. Even when he pulls it together, it’s just so that he can manipulate Destiny back into his life again. His eye is never on the prize, and his hand is never far from a bottle of alcohol. And there’s nothing wrong with telling that story — it’s sure to hit home for many viewers who can identify with Rico or know guys like him — but there’s also nothing wrong with having trouble sitting through the fourth or fifth sequence of a dude drunkenly stumbling down the sidewalk. Any city slicker can get that view for free, though admittedly it won’t have this film’s expert framing and color grading.
Along with its beautiful appearance, “Mad Bills to Pay” is notable for its realism. The actors hardly seem to be performing, in a testament to both them and Vargas’s direction. Checo and Florentino stand out as Rico’s girlfriend and mother, respectively, and Collado is quite memorable as Rico himself. It’s amazing to see parts of the Bronx rendered so vibrantly, the hot beach days and raucous nighttime parties nearly palpable through the screen. “Mad Bills to Pay” is a reverent slice of life, even if it’s harshly pessimistic about the prospects for its alcoholic protagonist.
But therein lies the issue. If it were significantly shorter, “Mad Bills to Pay” could be a masterpiece. As it is, the narrative meanders like its drunken protagonist — actually, less compellingly. This isn’t so much erratic swerving as it is passive, even-keeled observation. Fine for your typical indie drama, wearisome for this character study. [C+/B-]
