To sell or not to sell? Reminiscent of the oozing sarcasm embedded in its title, 18 Holes to Paradise is complete with snarky relations between members of an extended family who meet to decide what to do with the family mansion: a prime property in the heart of beautiful southern Portugal. But who cares about the olive groves that grow splendidly on the land? Maybe it would be better off as an 18-hole golf course.

Lisbon-based director João Nuno Pinto makes this premise into his third feature-length film, which has just world-premiered in the Official Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. His last film, Mosquito [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : João Nunes Monteiro
fiche film] (2020), opened International Film Festival Rotterdam.

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18 Holes to Paradise unfolds loosely in three parts, following three women embedded in this family dynamic and their respective plights. There is the alternative Francisca (Margarida Marinho) and the fashionable Catarina (Beatriz Batarda), both sisters who are the daughters of the late patriarch: the former wants to keep the house, while the latter would prefer to sell. The odd one out emerges as Susana (Rita Cabaço), the daughter of the family’s housekeeper, the one who ultimately has the deepest stakes, given her more precarious personal and financial situation – she will have nowhere to live if the house is sold.

A collective threat looms over them: a raging wildfire that begins to consume the area, just as their water supply is cut off and all of their livelihoods are mutually endangered – a fire means neither mansion nor viable land for anyone, should it reach the house. With this plot point, 18 Holes to Paradise is a thematic reminder of the Locarno entry Balearic [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Ion de Sosa
fiche film] by Ion de Sosa, where complacency and petty arguments threaten to overtake the potential of real action.

As the smoke drifts nearer, the orange-hued visuals contribute further to the urgency of their situation. The intrusion of the fire further brings a much-needed turn of the screw to the story, which begins to drag in its midsection and would have benefited from a bit of narrative concision, with a large amount of dialogue bogging down the story. Stark moments that punctuate the film’s more quotidian pacing become the work’s highlights, as does the final scene that becomes the pinnacle of what the filmmaker seems to be examining.

Situated between socioeconomic classes and varying levels of sanity, put crudely, the three interwoven stories are an intriguing take on the “late patriarch means dividing the wealth” genre (think Succession, perhaps, but more intimate). Nuno Pinto places his emphasis not solely on the implications of the decision, but also on the dynamics between the family members, keeping the drama grounded in realism despite the spinouts that occur.

18 Holes to Paradise is a production by Portugal’s Wonder Maria Filmes, Italy’s Albolina Film and Argentina’s Aurora Cine. Alpha Violet holds the rights to the film’s world sales.