Review of "Loco Por Ella"

A rather unusual Spanish romcom with a mental illness theme. Adrian is a cynical journalist who works on a clickbait website; he's good at it but seems to despise what he does, even though he also despises (and is despised by) his colleagues who want to proper journalism about serious subjects. There's a great performance by his cynical and despicable boss, who doesn't even know that what they are after is "clicks" - he keeps calling it "clips".

But while on a bet to pick up a woman in a bar, Adrian is picked up by a different woman, and has the night of his life and then falls in love, only she doesn't want to have any kind of  long term relationship. He seeks her out, finds she's an inmate in a mental institution, and then gets himself admitted so he can pursue her.

There's lots of interesting stuff going on, not least in the serious and sensible discussion of what mental illness is like and how the sufferers deserve to be treated. The psychologist who runs the place is an interesting and imperfect character but the film treats her as an intelligent and sensible professional with good expertise and insight - and treats expertise as superior to the 'knowledge' of family and friends...exactly the opposite of what a British or American film would do.

Plenty of humour and romance but also a serious and thoughtful film. And an opportunity to practice Spanish -- the people speaking on this film were much easier to understand than on some Spanish films I've tried recently.

Fun fact: as I thought, it's shot in Barcelona and Argentona, but it's entirely Spanish - no sign at all that it's Catalunya. Is that making a political point?

Watched on Netflix.