Previously on Erreway: 4 Caminos: Erreway almost gets stranded and dies in the bush, but then they don’t. Then they nearly get stuck in jail after a bar fight, then they don’t. Then they nearly get trapped by a mafioso, then they don’t.
Mia takes a pregnancy test, but Rosita the chicken knocks it over. (We’re also treated to a close-up of the test stick in a dish of Mia’s pee. I don’t know why we had to see that.) Mia ends up having to go to the hospital and get an ultrasound. The doctor confirms that she’s pregnant, and then he’s like, “Hey, you’re in Erreway! My daughters love you!” A tear runs down Mia’s face as the dude asks for her autograph, completely oblivious to her distress. Good to see that even in this alternate universe, Erreway’s doctors are still totally unprofessional.
Back at the hotel, the bus refuses to start, but then Manuel hits the dashboard and the engine turns over. This will come up again later.
Marizza is in a bad mood, and she rants at the others over breakfast: the band isn’t getting anywhere by playing all these dives in small towns, and she feels like she’s the only one with any ambition, when the rest of them seem happy just fucking around on the tour bus. All Marizza’s saying is that she sometimes has these visions of herself being a secret high school pop star and selling out the Gran Rex in Buenos Aires, and she feels like that’s a sign!
Mia sniffles that there are worse things than being an indie band, like being pregnant with Manuel’s unholy spawn, and Marizza’s like, “No there isn’t!!! Not having a record deal is the most horrible thing that could happen to any of us!” Marizza, I just wanna tell you that some people have war in their countries. Manuel and Pablo both defend Benito’s managerial skills. I mean, I guess Benito isn’t a teenage girl who keeps using her leukemia diagnosis for the sole purpose of getting Manuel to fuck her. The bar for Erreway’s managers is on the floor. Anyway, Pablo adds that they must be making a ton of money, given how well the shows are selling.
Cut to: Angioletti refusing to pay Benito. How shocking! Do you think Angioletti is the villain of the piece? Benito’s like, “But Angioletti, what will I tell Erreway? Won’t you think of the children?” Angioletti’s like fuck them kids, and kicks Benito out so he can eat his ravioli in peace. Hee. Angioletti’s goons drag Benito to a pigpen and dump him inside, and I guess I’m supposed to be worried that Benito’s going to get gored to death, but like…would that be such a bad thing?
Back at the breakfast place, Marizza storms off and Manuel chases after her, leaving Pablo and Mia alone. Pablo’s like, “That broad needs to get laid,” if you’ve forgotten that he’s some kind of weird frat bro now. Then the doctor comes in, sees Mia and Pablo, and assumes that they’re together. He’s like, “Congratulations on your baby!”, much to Pablo’s confusion. Er…are doctors allowed to just disclose a patient’s pregnancy like that? Even if it’s not illegal, Mia’s pretty young and came to the hospital alone; I would hope a doctor could infer that she’s not exactly in a stable relationship or situation. But whatever.
After breakfast, Pablo hustles Mia off to talk, and Marizza and Manuel are suspicious. Manuel manages to squeeze between Mia and Pablo, and is like, “I see you’re distressed, how about I comfort you with my penis?” Mia’s like, “Do you ever think about anything else?” and storms off. I mean…no? I just spent an entire 179 episodes watching him be relentlessly horny, Mia. Pablo chases after her, and Mia ugly cries that she’s only 18 and this is the worst possible time to get knocked up, when their careers are finally getting some momentum. Pablo’s like, “Yeah…that’s rough buddy.” He gives her a hug, which of course is just when Manuel and Marizza catch up to them.
As ever, Manuel loses his mind at the sight of Mia hugging another dude without permission. He runs up and punches Pablo, and Mia shrieks that she’s pregnant to break up their fight.
I guess Benito makes it out of the pigpen somehow, because Erreway gets back on the road. Marizza and Mia patch up Pablo and Manuel, respectively. Manuel’s like, “How could this happen to me?” IDK Manuel, maybe next time, don’t whine that it feels better without a condom. Benito takes the opportunity to also come clean about Angioletti screwing them over. Marizza starts banging on about how terrible their luck is and how Mia has ruined their lives by letting Manuel’s sperm swim up her Falliopian tubes, and o, how this chain of events will lead to their downfall. Mia’s like, “Wow, thanks for your support.”
Pablo says that Mia can still perform until the end of the tour, surely; Marizza argues in favor of…well, she seems to kind of be arguing in favor of abortion, about how Mia’s too young to have a baby and that she doesn’t have to have it. Of course, the movie won’t say so explicitly. Anyway, we cut from their argument to Mia giving birth (while Manuel films the entire thing like…my dude, at least hand the camera over to Marizza or Pablo). Uh, Mia had only just realized she’d missed her period; she can’t have been more than a couple of months along, and now she’s giving birth? How long is this tour supposed to be?
Whatever. This is followed by an inexplicable scene where Erreway drives out to the desert, where Benito presents Mia and Manuel with a baby basket he built for Candela. I do not know why he couldn’t have presented this like, at someone’s house. Or even in like a town square. Just not some weird desolate stretch of highway, you know? Anyway, Benito then also presents Erreway with a contract — a record deal, presumably, by the way they all cheer. In the grand tradition of this band, however, we do not ever see them recording any music — instead, they just head back out on tour again so that we can bask in footage of them selling out a bunch of clubs.
Erreway apparently remains on tour for like two years straight, as we see Mia and Manuel’s daughter (“Candela”) grow from an infant to a toddler. Blah blah they play a bunch of shows and have a bunch of screaming fans blah, and all is going well…until we see Mia coughing at the end of a gig. Jesus Christ, this woman has already had to carry Manuel’s demon spawn, how much more does she have to suffer?
One night, some producer-slash-manager gives Pablo his card after a show. Back on the bus, Marizza gripes that she still doesn’t think they’re as successful as they could be, and she obliquely blames Benito’s management. Then Candela starts crying and Mia and Manuel snipe at each other over calming her down and it seems like the tension in the band might come to a head but then it doesn’t.
In a couple of intervening scenes, Pablo decides to put all of Erreway’s cash in Benito’s Brian May guitar to keep it safe. Manuel needles Pablo about being crazy for Marizza, but Pablo denies it.
Erreway sees another ad for the battle of the bands in Rio de Janeiro. I’m assuming this is an annual thing, and they haven’t like…been dragging out the same event for three years. Anyway, they decide to participate this time, but Benito whines that it’s too hard for him to get on a plane and they’d have to ditch the bus. They would? I just Google Maps’d it, and even from like, southwestern Argentina, the distance to Rio is only slightly longer than a cross-country trip across the US. Also, they’ve spent like the past three years crisscrossing Argentina, which has to be about the same in terms of total mileage. I don’t know.
Anyway, that’s not the real reason Benito is upset; he’s actually all pissy because he thinks Erreway is being naive about how difficult the music industry actually is, and they can’t just fuck off to Rio and think everything will be fine. Pablo calls Benito out, saying that Benito failed at his musical dream and now he’s subconsciously trying to stop Erreway from experiencing the same disappointment if/when they embarrass themselves at the Battle of the Bands. He gives Benito an impassioned speech about how Erreway is fighting for their dreams and they have to least try.
We don’t see how Benito reacts, though, because we cut away to the inside of the bus. Mia realizes it’s Marizza’s birthday, and Marizza gets all emo about how she’s never celebrated it. Why? Let’s not bother to explain! Instead, the band somehow produces a cake for her and they have a dance party out in the desert. As you do. Benito watches them and their youthful joy or whatever makes him realize that Pablo was right. Of course he was. You thought you could disagree with Erreway and get away with it, Benito? So anyway, Benito agrees to take them to Brazil. As everyone celebrates, Mia goes inside the bus and starts coughing up blood. Oh snap!
Later that night, Marizza gets all emo and asks the band to promise that they’ll be best friends forever, “pase lo que pase.” And cueste lo que cueste? They all shake on it, but the narrator ominouses that from that day onwards, “everything changed.”
A thunderclap goes off as Manuel wakes up from a nightmare, sitting up straight in bed. He’s like, “I dreamed that Mia was dying! I have to join Emperor Palpatine to save her!” Just kidding.
We then see Mia coming out of some building (a hospital?) and flail-running through the streets while she cries. Ah, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a flail-run!
Whatever Mia’s found out about her telenovelaneosis, she keeps to herself for the moment. There’s an excruciatingly long scene of her giving a speech to Candela about how much she loves her, which Marizza thankfully interrupts by running up and telling Mia that they’re making plans for Rio. She sees a giant bruise on Mia’s leg and asks what’s up with her. Mia shows Marizza her diagnosis from the hospital, and Marizza’s like, “No puede ser!” Aw! I wasn’t sure we were ever gonna hear that phrase again! She’s like, “There must be a cure for this; it’s 2004, we have the technology!” Oh, Marizza. The only cure for telenovelaneosis is if the main couple has been broken up for most of the season, and they need to get back together because the show is ending soon. Mia and Manuel were in a stable relationship for the entirety of this movie; she is absolutely going to die.
Mia tells Manuel that she’s dying of telenovelaneosis leukemia*, because we know how much Manuel likes girls with leukemia. We don’t actually get to hear the dialogue (probably for the best); instead, there’s just a sad piano playing over this entire scene. Mia also elects to tell Manuel the news outside, while it’s raining, because I guess she figures she’s dying anyway, so what’s a little pneumonia on top of her leukemia?
Props to Felipe Colombo, though, for managing not to put his thumb in his mouth during his emotional acting this time. Growth!
*I could not actually hear them refer to Mia’s illness as “leukemia” at any point, but that’s what it says on Wikipedia, so I’ll roll with it.
After everyone gets their dramatic crying scene out of the way, we move on with the plot. Mia wants to stick with their plan to go to Brazil, because YOLO, amirite? The rest of the band is like, “Maybe we should go back to Buenos Aires and you can start chemo?” and Mia gets all r/showerthoughts about how we’re ALL dying, technically, and they’ve tried so hard and got so far, and actually, her dying wish is to play in the Battle of the Bands, and they wouldn’t want to deny her that, would they? I mean, I guess it’s more respectable than Sabrina’s dying wish of getting to fuck Manuel. Benito says that they barely have enough money to get to Brazil; if they keep going, they won’t be able to drive back to Buenos Aires.
So Benito decides to help Erreway out by…getting Angioletti involved. Oh, for fuck’s sake. He does some unspecified “negotiation” with him, and comes back with plane tickets to Rio. Erreway cheers and does not at all question where he got the money for the tickets from. As everyone’s dancing around, Pablo finally kisses Marizza, and they make out in front of God and everybody.
Back on the bus, Manuel notices that Benito’s Brian May guitar is gone. Benito reveals that he sold it to Angioletti to get the money for the plane tickets. Marizza is like, “But Benito, that’s the only thing of worth you own!” and Benito’s like, “No, Marizza…the only thing in life that REALLY has worth is friendship!” Everyone is all heartwarmed for 5 seconds until Pablo tells them that he’d been storing all of their cash in the guitar. The band’s like, “Oh, fuck, friendship doesn’t pay for gas.”
So naturally, their next move is to hatch a wacky plan to get the money back from Angioletti. The boys sneak into Angioletti’s lair to get the guitar back while the womenfolk stay behind. They almost get caught but then they don’t, and they make off with the guitar plus some extra money. Everything looks like it’s coming up Erreway, but then the bus breaks down on the highway like two seconds later. Then Angioletti and his henchmen catch up to the band and murder them all.
Just kidding. We instead cut to our Mysterious Narrator, who is finally revealed to be a grown-up Candela, giving an interview. She’s like, “And of course, you know what happened next.” What? No, I don’t, Candela! Does Erreway go on to sell out the Gran Rex? Candela’s like, “As you know, the band passed down their passion for music and love of life to me, and made me the person I am today!” The interviewer’s like, “Okay, but for real, did they make it to Brazil or not?” Candela’s like, “Oh look this interview’s over, bye.” She walks out of the room and we see that she’s backstage, getting ready for a concert — she’s a famous singer, and Benito is her manager.
Candela voiceovers that we probably want to know if Erreway made it to Brazil and triumphed in the Battle of the Bands. I mean…yeah, Candela, that was kind of the main plot of the movie. She tells us that of course Erreway triumphed: the real prize was the friends we made along the way. So…I’m guessing they didn’t make it to Brazil. Also, this is the exact same lesson that we all learned at the end of the TV series. Candela says that Manuel went into the film industry instead, Pablo became a producer, and Marizza became a solo singer. And Mia is dead, but her daughter is famous, so I guess that’s a consolation.
Then Candela and Erreway sing “Memoria” over a montage of Erreway fucking around in the desert, apparently not bothered at all that they’re stranded in the middle of nowhere. And that’s the movie!
So…that happened. I don’t really know how to feel about this. If any of you were fans of the show in your younger days, did you like the movie when you first saw it? It’s okay, I guess, but it’s hard to enjoy when it’s so different from the TV series we’ve been invested in for 300+ episodes. Mia and Manuel are the only ones who seem even remotely like their original selves; on the other hand, the whole Pablo/Marizza story that was built up for 2 years was totally wiped out, and Pablo’s also kind of flirty and pervy in a way that he never was in the original. None of the parents or other TV characters exist. The movie isn’t shamelessly ridiculous enough to be as fun as the show was, but it’s not well-written enough to be a good dramatic film either, so it’s just sort of…blah. It was kind of hard to find funny things to say about it, honestly, because it just felt really dissonant and weird. It didn’t help that the movie doesn’t have that much of a plot, either — it’s basically just a lot of mildly tense scenes that get resolved quickly and are split up with a bunch of montages.
I did think the general idea of the ending was nice — it was cool to see Erreway actually have to deal with failure for once, instead of having record deals and sold-out arena tours just fall into their laps — but it didn’t feel very satisfying, simply due to the sheer amount of bullshit we went through. All of Benito’s fuckery, Mia being pregnant, oh wait Mia’s pregnancy is fine but she’s now dying of telenovelacanceritis, we got rid of Angioletti but actually he’s back, and it was all basically for nothing. Like, after all of that, they could’ve at least made it to the Battle of the Bands and then lost, a la School of Rock.
Anyway. What a weird movie. Thankfully, I’ll be recapping some of the remakes of Rebelde Way over the next week (spoilers!) so we’ll be back on familiar ground soon.
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