The absurdity and grotesque one-upmanship of an executive job interview is sometimes perfectly captured in El Metodo, with an anti-capitalist demonstration used as an invisible backdrop with subtle symbolism. Directing is handled with confidence, and there is some memorable acting, although towards the end the ugly head of melodramatic overacting rears, destroying the atmosphere.Also demolishing is the flawed characterization. One huge problem of the basic concept is that people interviewing for a high level managerial position have very rarely got anything to lose. Failure only gets the applicants back to other well paid, plush jobs. Such is a case with these people too; apart from their dignity and self-respect, there is nothing much at stake. Bigger problem is that even those they could easily keep were it not for their conveniently convoluted behaviour. From the writer's perspective it's simply a matter of bad characterization choices and some silly plotting. The competing interviewees behave with enormous stupidity sometimes to conveniently fit the dramatic wishes of the storyteller. One of the protagonists, a woman is rendered a victim about halfway through the film, a weak character unable to resist the sexual advances of a fellow male participant. This completely stupid and unrealistic plot development alone almost makes everything that follows implausible and shallow. (I mean, who in the world has sex in his mind during a supposedly important job interview? Come on, even the most macho males can control their animal urges - if they can't, there's no way they get to an executive position.) It's a pity the filmmakers could not muster up more courage to let the situation play itself out without sensationalist, melodramatic actions and resort to such cheap moves. What started out very well and tense, derails because of increasingly melodramatic plot solutions from the midpoint on.It's a pity also that apart from a nicely symbolic final image and some subtly added subtext the storytellers did not make more of the anti-capitalist protests apparently going on simultaneously. It's a device completely wasted.All in all, a film worth watching once for some nice psychodrama elements, but ultimately a terribly missed opportunity. For a similar premise, but a much more thrilling story watch "The Killing Room".

Seven executives are gathered in a room, ostensibly to chose one to fill an open position. I tuned in to see Eduardo Noriega, but he was not the star of this film. The real stars were the writers Mateo Gil and Marcelo Piñeyro, who took a Jordi Galcerán play and made a film that was compelling from start to finish.In addition to Noriega, there were outstanding performances by Ernesto Alterio, Carmelo Gómez, Eduard Fernández, Adriana Ozores, and Pablo Echarri. While her role was minor, Natalia Verbeke had a charm that captivated me every time she entered the room.I don't know about this Grönholm method, but it certainly brought out the best and worst of the people, and showed what they would be like in the company. I guess the closest thing to this film would be 12 Angry Men, except here it was seven, and two were women. Sexism, ageism, nationalism: they all came into play as the individuals competed.What part of yourself do you give up to win? Outstanding ending.

I was actually surprised to read that some people thought the bathroom scenes were unnecessary. I beg to disagree.There are a few levels to those scenes.It implies that the Macho Iberico and la Santa Zorra also knew each other. It was not simply sex between strangers. Who knows, maybe Fernando had something to do with Nieves not returning Carlos calls. It is also a good contrast when he says that the bathroom is the only place where they can be themselves. Of course, that was before we learn that cameras are everywhere.It is also the key to the game played between Nieves and Carlos during the ball game.So, it was not irrelevant at all.

The idea was nice: 7 people in one room and a kind of role-play game as a selection to get 1 much coveted position in a big corporation. How long can a movie benefit from a good premise and keep all aboard despite a slight shortage in the follow-up? Admittedly it is 10 minutes, 10 minutes that are sufficient for the audience to judge whether the movie delivers the goods or not (with regards to the level of expectations set beforehand).El Método doesn't fall flat after 10 or 30 minutes, instead it gradually loses traction with each eliminated applicant. With the first applicant on the way out the movie already shows its inner weaknesses. Actually this character goes too fast from a pretty strong position in the group to the status of a victim. I'd say this means the script was quite a bit weak.ONE SIMPLE GOOD IDEA IS FINE, BUT THE SIMPLER THE IDEA THE STRONGER THE SCRIPT AND DIRECTION NEED TO BEWhen you watch the movie there's an inner mechanism of suspense (Next out?) leading you to expect more from the next elimination, so there's some kind of suspension of disbelief stretched until you no longer care for the outcome. The movie lost me as a good-willing viewer (i.e. not getting to think about what is wrong in it) with the luncheon intermezzo. Just before that, the second applicant was out, losing through a 'Nuclear after-world' role play which was good, not great but it was right to heat up the atmosphere. The lunch was certainly necessary to change gears, deviate, scatter and broaden the narration, yet it feels more like a lull. Lasts too long as a whole as well as in the inter-cut narrative between the various sub-groups. Script softness plus direction flaw. Stemming down from there the ending is not very interesting, you no longer care for one character or the other.10 MINUTES DEAL?So was the movie getting bad only halfway? No, actually the titles already say it all. They mean nothing, don't set up the narration, and worse of all the images chosen as a dressing for the opening credits represent exactly the kind of cliché a lazy director would chose. You've got vignettes of various characters waking up and on their ways to the building for the group job interview. What can be more devoid of creativity than a movie starting with a character waking up in the morning then having breakfast? Can you believe some useless split-screen makes this poor start even worse? On the other hand the alter-globalization demonstration context is a fine idea but it's not enforced to the full in the closed-space narration.On the whole a movie that would have need re-writing and a better director. Bring in the true talents for a remake.