Split Identity
Viggo Mortensen's Argentine background (hence his perfect Porteno accent) is unknown to most film fans. In this film, the actor famous for his role as Aragorn in Lord of The Rings, The Road and Eastern Promises embraces his 'other side' as he masterfully pulls off playing identical twins in a new Argentine thriller. Graham Douglas talks to director Ana Piterbarg talks about her debut feature film Everybody Has a Plan.
Twin brothers - both played by Vigo Mortensson - who have spent many years without contact meet when Pedro, the black sheep and dying from cancer, turns up at his successful brother's door in Buenos Aires. Agustin, a pediatrician is in an unhappy marriage and, ironically, also unhappy about his wife's desire to adopt a child. After Pedro dies Agustin uses his body to fake his own death, and tries to take Pedro's place in the Tigre swamps, where they both grew up.
Unlikely as the plot may seem, the film's brooding atmosphere stayed with me long after I saw it. Perhaps because it suggests that the glossy norm of a middle-class professional career, which advertising constantly suggests to us, hides a corrosive anxiety of personal identity. Orientation is difficult in a world where threats are only expressed as reflections of a Dangerous Other, transmitted in the media. In contrast, the boundaries of life-loyalties and debts - in the Tigre are sharply defined, and people's hidden motives are dogs that bite. As Pedro returns he is quickly out of his depth and the feeling is that his existential crisis has sapped his will, not only to have a family, but even to survive.
Ana Piterbarg has previously been known for light TV series, and this is her first feature.
This interview can be read in full on the Latinolife website where it was first published, with links and film stills, here: