Érica Rivas

Érica Rivas’s Romina is angry, but the anger does not hold steady. The wedding story in Wild Tales (2014) could become a single joke about a furious woman; Rivas keeps us unsure of where her fury will go. We laughed more than we expected, because she makes those changes of direction funny without making Romina’s feelings seem ridiculous. Even when the behaviour becomes absurd, there is someone recognisable doing it.

Casados con hijos (2005–2006), where she played María Elena Fuseneco, made her widely recognised in Argentina. The television comedy matters to this view of her, but so does a film career that includes Tetro (2009), a Francis Ford Coppola production. Wild Tales then brought international attention. Its wedding story asks for precisely the combination her casting often favours: comedy with emotional and physical outbursts.

Damián Szifron’s direction needs that credibility. Across his six revenge stories, the behaviour is exaggerated enough that the actors have to suggest a life beyond the immediate grievance. Ricardo Darín supplies accumulated impatience as Simón Fisher, while Rivas is the more volatile presence. That difference matters in an anthology, where one angry person can soon start to resemble the last. A few stories go on too long, but these performances make the exaggeration easier to accept.

Her casting has often favoured flawed, outspoken women, which makes it tempting to reduce her work to a talent for confrontation. That would be too narrow a recommendation. In Anahí Berneri’s Elena Knows (2023), she plays Rita in an adaptation concerned with women’s lives; Berneri has worked with her on two films. There is reason to follow that collaboration rather than ask for another Romina. Start with Wild Tales, unless the evening calls for people being pleasant to one another.