Oh, to have rent only amounting to a hundred bucks…
What it's about
While aspiring to be the next big writer-director, the neurotic Adolfo Rollo can’t pay the rent and win over the affections of his neighbor Angelica. When his landlord insists on getting rent, Adolfo does everything to get his screenplay funded, which includes meeting a gangster with interesting ideas for film financing.
The take
Making a film is sort of a miracle– to make one can sometimes come into fruition through a lucky combination of connections, creativity and circumstances all perfectly aligning as if by fate. But making a film takes cash to do it. In the Soup is an independent comedy centered on an aspiring auteur meeting an eccentric, creative gangster that’s willing to do everything (including crime) to fund it. The film does mostly depend on conversations between characters, witty repartee and Steve Buscemi’s voice-over, but it does capture the importance of patrons in the artistic process, how silly some lofty artistic aspirations can be, and to never forget the human side of the filmmaking process, not just the solitary brainstorming.
What stands out
While I do think Steve Buscemi is severely underrated, there’s something about Seymour Cassel’s performance that steals the show in this film. His manic, chaotic gangster film financier performance is something to remember.