Mariano Barroso and Alejandro Hernández gifted the public in 2018 with The Day of Tomorrow, a drama that reconstructed Francoist society from the mid-60s until the arrival of democracy under Justo Gil (Oriol Pla). From a humble family who emigrated to Barcelona to settle in a working-class neighborhood, the character had a nose for moving in a system marked by dictatorship and rising through charisma and excessive ambition. And the creative duo, as if they had been left with a thorn in their side for not continuing to read the times, now present Los Farad on Amazon Prime Video, where Miguel Herrán is the guy with the glibness and desire to undertake, this time in the eighties.
Like Oskar, he is a young man who grew up in an orphanage and who, seeing how well he does with aerobics in gyms, wants to open his own studio in Madrid. Her plan changes, however, when he meets Sara (Susana Abaitua), whom he rescues in the middle of the street from a man who is attacking her. He turns out to belong to the Farads, a wealthy family, and the attraction they feel for each other allows him to receive an offer: financing to open a gym in Marbella, where they live and have their business.
At first, Oskar does not understand where so much opulence comes from: Sara only tells him that they are dedicated to exporting and that everything is legal. When hitmen enter the farm in the middle of the night, they can no longer hide the truth from him: they are dedicated to the arms trade, with the countries of the communist axis as their main clients.
Entering Los Farad is stimulating due to its hybrid nature that prevents you from pigeonholing it and buying it and discarding it without having barely had any contact with it. It begins as a story of individual ambition with the exercise industry in the background, with that Oskar with devilish pelvic movements who would be alone in the world if it weren’t for his artificer uncle, played by Fernando Tejero.
The romantic variable serves for the series to also assume a family drama in a market that goes beyond the legal framework and with a clear boss, that patriarch Farad of Pedro Casablanc. Nora Navas as the mother and Adam Jezierski and Amparo Piñero as the brothers complete a clan that considers the sun and the pool as its habitat (also leading to the deception of its true nature).
It must be recognized that, while The Day After Tomorrow was a treasure of contemporary Spanish fiction for its way of portraying and symbolizing an era based on a character, Los Farad can be read in parallel but as a minor league work. He knows how to exploit his context: the notes on a Cold War already with a communist side in decline, the figure of the professional commission agent who accumulates his fortune based on agreements with governments, the culture of aerobics, that thirst for money of a Spain open to the world , the limited role of women in a sector such as arms trafficking. These themes move with agility and, however, they will hardly remain in the viewer’s conscience as that late Francoist Justo Gil did.
This criticism may sell the erroneous idea that Los Farad is a title to avoid in the Amazon catalog when, in reality, Barroso and Hernández conceive a dynastic drama designed for spectacle. Barroso as director (and a budget that seems generous on the part of the platform) combines the tones, locations and situations that make his work a luxury both for the plot and for the experience it offers to the viewer.
It doesn’t matter if it’s showing a lavish party with Julio Iglesias, a hunt with lions, a meal by the pool, a gym class or a meeting in Yemen: the camera has been there without doubting its verisimilitude. of the surroundings, of the visible opulence and without ever losing pace, as if some scenes were built to the beat of an eighties pop song.
To root the story, it has Herrán, Casablanc and Abaitua: whoever chose them for the roles had a lot of insight but, in addition, they take advantage of good material. And, even though the popularity of La casa de papel distorted the image that can be had of Herrán, as the son-in-law of Los Farad confirms that he has an overflowing charisma that makes him one of the great leading actors and commercials on current television .
