The final part of a trilogy from Chilean director Pablo Larrain, which started with Tony Manero and continued with Post Mortem, takes as its subject the unwise referendum on his presidency the dictator Augusto Pinochet held in 1988.
Forced by the US to give the people a chance to have their say, Pinochet had everything in his favour. The opposition was badly split, the media largely under his control and all the money was on his side. But the No vote triumphed despite this, and the film shows us how Rene, a young advertising executive (Gael García Bernal), forged the successful campaign against the wishes of his high-ranking boss, a member of the Pinochet advisory board.
Eschewing the obvious montages of killings, torture, tanks and teargas, Rene decided simply to promise a better future with a series of ads that promised “Happiness is coming if you vote No”.
Larrain fashions his story in the form of a fictional documentary and cuts in newsreel footage of the real events. His film is partly a political thriller and partly highly personal, thanks to the fine acting of a good cast, strikingly led by García Bernal. It has its dull patches but manages to show with some flair both the awfulness of the Pinochet regime and how Chileans rose against it.
