Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed is a Spanish film inspired by the iconic lyrics from “Strawberry Fields Forever”. I stumbled across at the cinemas last week and attended on title alone. As a Beatles fan I wasn’t disappointed, but how about as a film fan? It just so happened that in my spontaneous choice I discovered what easily ranks as one of the best – and most genuine – road movies I’ve ever seen.
The film, which was the Spanish entrant for the 2014 Academy Awards, follows three unlikely travelling companions, the beautiful Belén (Natalia de Molina), a pregnant runaway, Juanjo (Francesc Colomer), a smart kid escaping his controlling father and our unsuspecting leader, Antonio (Javier Cámara), a fairly lonely – but genuinely good – English and Latin teacher who is on a quest to meet his hero John Lennon, who was filming Richard Lester’s How I Won the War in Almeria, in the South of Spain at the time the film is set (1966).
The man is a Beatles tragic and even teaches the lyrics of their songs to his students. At first, you’re unsure of his intentions, but as the film progresses and the details are revealed, you can’t help but root for the guy – just as Juanjo and Belén come to do themselves. The relationship between the three of them is beautifully told. They are an unlikely group, brought together by chance, timing and a variety of circumstances.
As you travel around Spain, and around the small town of Almeria they end up in, you’re enveloped by the understated beauty of the country and its people, well articulated by cinematographer Daniel Vilar. Though they remain static in the town Lennon is shooting in for quite some time, this is very much a road movie. And a fine one at that. And as a fictional tale set around actual events, where real life teacher Juan Carrion met John Lennon while filming, it’s a clever one too.
Writer/Director David Trueba has done an amazing job of bringing you into the lives of these three companions, making you genuinely care what happens to them. He avoids a lot of the clichés one might expect and avoids the sort of drama that can make these sorts of films grating or even unbearable. The drama that does exist is well told and well balanced, though the crux of the journey – as with any great road movie – is finding out where the road they’re on takes them, and hoping they reach the destination they were looking for… while they learn something about themselves and each other along the way of course.
By the time you see that road come to an end, you’re just as sad to say goodbye to them as they are to each other. It’s a beautiful… beautiful film that evokes the purest of human sentiment with the ideals of following your dreams. And it does this without ever getting sappy. Here’s hoping there’s no Hollywood remake.
Review Score: FOUR AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed is in limited release now.
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