A One Mann’s Movies review of “My Fault” (2023).
Original Spanish Title: “Culpa Mia”.
“My Fault” sees a Spanish 17-year-old hottie acting on romantic feelings for her 21-year-old Spanish hottie stepbrother. What Dr Bob? Departing from the norm and doing reviews of porn now are we?
Well, almost. This new offering – coming (no pun intended) to Prime Video in two day’s time – feels like a slightly unsavoury feature. But – against all the odds – is actually quite eloquently done.
I’m going to give this one two ratings: a standard Bob the Movie Man Rating; and one specifically for teens full of rampaging hormones and barely controllable sexual urges! Since I think for this latter group, this movie will be a big hit!
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Rampantly Horny Teenager Rating:
Plot Summary:
Noah (Nicole Wallace) is a truculent 17-year-old moving out of her family home with her mother Rafaella (Marta Hazas). That’s because Rafaella is moving into the palatial Malaga home of her new and outrageously well-off husband Will (Iván Sánchez). But Noah’s life gets significantly more complicated – some ‘step-bother’ if you will – when she meets Will’s raffish 21-year-old son Nick (Gabriel Guevara) and an instant attraction is felt.
Certification:
UK: NR; US: NR. (* This doesn’t have a BBFC rating yet, but based on the partial nudity and sexual content, a “15” feels a likely rating.)
Talent:
Starring: Nicole Wallace, Gabriel Guevara, Marta Hazas, Iván Sánchez, Jose Palacios, Ivan Massagué, Eva Ruiz.
Directed by: Domingo González.
Written by: Domingo González. (Based on the book by Mercedes Ron).
Twitter Handle: #culpamiafilm; #culpamiamovie; #culpamia.
Jenna (an equally stunning Eva Ruiz) befriends Noah (Nicole Wallace) at a party. (Source: Prime Video).
“My Fault” Review:
Positives:
- After the first ten minutes of this, I was ready to dismiss it as a same-old, same-old trashy teen flick. But I got curiously engaged with it and – despite the demographic mis-match – ended up quite enjoying it. There is a flimsy additional storyline of revenge (which – see below – actually pays off surprisingly well). But this is primarily about the ‘will-they, won’t-they’ bump-and-grind between the step-brother and the step-sister. The sub-plot intermittently intrude between bouts of ‘fumbling’ between the pair: fumbling by a fast car; fumbling on a sofa; fumbling in a swimming pool; fumbling in a car park; fumbling on a beach; fumbling in a bed. It’s all, slightly-taboo, #fumbling all round!
- The film tries to spice itself up – perhaps to better entertain the less-romantically-inclined male audience – with some “Fast and Furious” style illicit street-racing and some “Fight Club” style fisticuffs. Although this feels slightly half-hearted, it does add some additional interest to the flow.
- A film like this – just like the “Twilight” series – needs impossibly beautiful and desirable leads. And this has it. Gabriel Guevara as Will channels an olive-skinned Robert Pattinson. He will no doubt garner an instant international female fan-base (not least for his naked strip-on the beach to put on his wetsuit, in true Spanish-beach fashion). And Nicole Wallace is a stunningly attractive girl with a magnetic screen presence. This seems to be only her second film, and I can predict a real future for her if she can transition to the international mainstream. Both Guevera and Wallace starred in a hit Spanish TV show called “Skam España” so they probably have a pretty big local following already.
- I mentioned the rather subliminal revenge sub-plot above, and it stays rather underplayed until the final reel. But there is an action scene at the end of the film, with two sports cars on a pier, that is genuinely thrilling to watch and would not be out of place in “No Time To Die“. “Bravo!” I exclaimed when it happened!
On the Fence
- I can’t decide if this is a positive or negative. But given the movie’s subject matter it seems remarkably chaste. When Noah and Will are fumbling (#fumblingpart2) on a sofa Will says, coming up for breath, “This isn’t right at all – you’re my stepsister and you are seventeen”. “Well, kiss me until I turn eighteen” replies Noah. Now this is despite the age of consent in Spain being 16. It’s almost as if the Prime Video guys thought “ooh, might be a bit much for our US audience…. let’s tone it down”. And despite a lot of buttocks on show, and an essence of side-boob, there is virtually no other nudity visible. I think I caught 2 frames of errant nipple in the finale, but in every other sex scene every sensitive area is artfully covered by a hand, an arm, etc. It’s like that funny scene in “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery”!
- The reason I’m on the fence on this topic is that on the one hand it feels false and fake, but on the other this could easily have turned into a terrible teen-variant of those awful “365 Days” films on Netflix. And who would ever want that level of cringe crassness?
Negatives:
- Despite the glossy trappings, the tale of semi-illicit-love does feel somewhat sordid. The shock value will no doubt attract curious viewers to Prime Video (which is exactly what they want!). But the film could equally have been made with Will being the hot next-door neighbour to have avoided the controversy.
- There are some truly cheesy romantic lines thoughout. I’m sure dreamy-eyed 14-year-old girls will lap them up. But they made me chuckle with supressed mirth. “I couldn’t stand these being our last kisses”…. “Our kisses are eternal” – LOL.
- There’s a young girl called Maddie (Noah Casas) in the movie who appears to be Will’s sister. Biological sister? Another step-sister? (NO! Don’t even go there!!) Unless I missed it, she is never properly introduced and she seemed to be a spare wheel in the thing to pad out a few minutes of running time.
Summary Thoughts on “My Fault”
I suspect this one will be a big hit for Prime Video with the teen target-demographic. Given the ever-decreasing age of puberty these days, that probably extends from 19 down to curious 11 or 12 year olds. As a film for adults, it remains watchable. But if you ARE a teen, this is probably one of those films you definitely don’t want to watch with your parents or grandparents (who would NEVER understand what you were thinking, obviously NEVER have had sex and certainly NEVER have sex anymore!)
The film is based on Mercedes Ron’s ‘Culpables’ trilogy of books. And from the last line of the film, it seems that there will be at least one follow-up to the movie.
“My Fault” (Culpa Mia) is available to watch on Prime Video from 8th June 2023. (My thanks to the PR team at Prime Video for sending me an early screener of this.) I’d recommend you watch it (as I did) in the original Spanish with sub-titles, since the English dubbed version (from the trailer) looks horrendous!
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Trailer for “My Fault”
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CpKBAPqqM0 .
