The Goya Awards are Spain’s main national film awards. They are considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars. So imagine my excitement upon learning that Grace Querejeta’s 2007 film Siete mesas de billar francés (translated as Seven French Billiards Tables) received 10 Goya nominations, including two wins for Best Leading Actress (Maribel Verdú) and Best Supporting Actress (Amparo Baró).
To put that in perspective, there are 53 movies that have earned at least 10 Oscar nominations. That pantheon includes Lawrence of Arabia, The Sting, Network, Star Wars, and Braveheart, to name a handful with exactly 10 nominations. Pretty impressive company.
Among billiards movies, only two have walked the red carpet: The Hustler (nine nominations, including two wins) and twenty-five years later The Color of Money (four nominations, including one win).
This movie should have been cinematic oro. What a disappointment.
Siete mesas de billar francés feels like a telenovela, with a bunch of broken relationships and budding romances fighting for viewer attention. The movie begins with Angela (Verdú) and her son Guille traveling to the big city to see the boy’s grandfather. Upon arriving, they not only learn he has passed, but that his billiard hall, 7 Siete Mesas, with seven French tables (i.e., carom billiards tables) is now in decrepit condition and that the grandfather had a number of outstanding debts. For Angela, the bad news keeps coming, as she subsequently is confronted by the police to learn that her husband has both disappeared and has a secret second family.
Faced with a panorama of bad news, Angela decides to stay in the big city and restore the billiard hall to its former glory. This includes re-assembling the hall’s one-time billiard team — now a bunch of gruff, ornery oldsters – to compete in the upcoming tournament with a chance of winning the prize money.
Tempers flare and tensions rise, but given the movie’s melodramatic predictability, the players are able to put aside old history and reconnect. There’s even a place on team Siete Mesas for the dead father’s crotchety girlfriend. Eventually, it’s Angela who must reconcile her past and truly come to terms with her father’s death (but not before ripping a number of portraits of him off the wall and shattering them on the floor – oh my!).
Billiards enthusiasts will be equally disappointed, as Siete mesas de billar francés talks about the sport much more than it shows it. Certainly, the title sequence left me hopeful, as black-and-white photos of carom billiards players in their prime faded in and out. This was nostalgia for the game of yesteryear. But, aside from some occasional three-cushion shots, which always impress me for their perfect manipulation of the balls, the present-day game never materialized. Even the upcoming tournament never actually starts, though there is a bit of surprise as to who rounds out the team when one of the players steals the winnings and goes on the lam.
Siete mesas de billar francés is mildly entertaining, and Ms. Verdú is powerful in the lead, though not as much fun to watch as she was in Y tu mamá también or Pan’s Labyrinth. But, given its accolades, this film ultimately felt like a table scratch.
Siete mesas de billar francés is available to watch on Amazon Prime.
