At first glance, the main attraction of The MachineMexican series directed by Gabriel Ripstein (600 Miles), is undoubtedly the reunion between internationally renowned actors, who are also childhood friends, Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna 23 years after the legendary And you mamá alsoby Alfonso Cuarón, and 16 years later Rudo y Cursifrom his brother Carlos Cuarón. In 2024, it can be said that the chemistry between the two continues to operate, this time under the umbrella of absurdity and torment in a country corrupt to the core.
In the series, including showrunner is Marco Ramirez (Daredevil), Gael García Bernal is Esteban “La Máquina” Osuna, a boxer whose glory days are far behind him, while Diego Luna is Andy Lujan, his agent and long-toothed best friend, determined to bring his athlete back to the top in the ring for a final fight. Except that it doesn’t take long for a malicious organization to enter into this already unstable equation… and everything then becomes a question of life and death.
If Gael García Bernal offers an excellent performance – nothing really needs to be said about this remarkable actor, to whom the role of tortured boxer fits like a glove – we should however highlight the prowess of his sidekick Diego Luna. This one, absolutely unrecognizable, outclasses the rest of the cast by giving real depth to his character. From the first moments of The Machineit is almost impossible not to first see Andy Lujan as an ersatz Donald Trump. Less nastiness, however, it is important to make that clear. Abuse of foundation, facial expression, frozen, drawn features, swollen from too many injections, the deliciously stupid look, the permanent delirium in which he swims, etc., it’s all there.
How then can we bring relief and interest to this Andy Lujan, who therefore seems very smooth? Diego Luna, from start to finish, never ceases to surprise with the naive eccentricity that he instills in his character. His way of speaking, his facial expressions, despite everything, and his non-verbal language, combined with a plot without head or tail – let’s not say too much so as not to spoil the pleasure – are undoubtedly the glue of the series, which manages to keep viewers in suspense from start to finish.
The foundations now laid, let’s focus on the subject of The Machine. The opaque universe of boxing competitions is thus notably explored through the prism of paranoia, that of Andy Lujan, obviously, who gets himself into an impossible mess (here too, we can only think of Donald Trump when he proclaims its inadvertence, even its innocence), but also that of La Máquina itself. With a career that spans several decades, the character of Gael García Bernal now suffers the repercussions of head trauma due to the blows that will have been dealt to him for a long time, a bit as if he had hit himself every day. head against a concrete wall the whole time. His family, his ex-wife — journalist Irasema, played by Eiza González (Baby Driver) — and his sons, of course, also pay the price. Over the course of the episodes, his mental health deteriorates, in fact, visibly, taking the form of severe attacks of hallucinations and paranoia, so much so that as an audience, we no longer really know where to trace the line. line between reality, fiction and the mental confusion of the protagonist.
And that’s not all, since lost in the maze of his psychotic phases, Esteban Osuna is also highly dependent on substances – alcohol, drugs and medication. Let us also mention that other characters from The Machineas the mother and wife of Andy Lujan, to whom Lucía Méndez (The desconocido) and Karina Gidi (Los adioses) lend their features, struggle with drug addiction and other modern ills, such as eternal youth at all costs. Implicitly, this says a lot about our contemporary societies, where it is fashionable to display a mind of steel and a physique corresponding to unreal criteria of form and beauty.
Finally, let us salute the scathing humor that emerges from The Machinefrom the first to the last scene. We laugh cheerfully at the subtlety of the enormities and nonsense of the situations encountered by each of the characters, and this despite the dramas, sometimes linked to organized crime, sometimes simply to human stupidity, which take place in the series. For example, the dynamic between Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna gives rise to sequences that are both hyper disturbing and hilarious, and we often find ourselves juggling emotions that are polar opposites of each other. Giggles guaranteed.