Film No returns: summary, analysis and distribution

No refunds(Instructions Not Included) is a film co-written, directed and starring the versatile Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez. The film was released in 2013 and marked his debut as a director and, after its premiere, it became the highest grossing Mexican film worldwide.

This film combines comedy and drama, while portraying the maturing process of a man who is terrified of commitment. The film also reveals great life lessons. But what does that tape have? What is the secret of his success? What lessons can we learn from it?

Summary of the movie

Valentín is a man who lives in Acapulco. From a very young age, his father wanted to instill in him the courage to face life's problems and overcome fears big and small. However, the lessons of his father did not help him much, because Valentine is a man who has a fear of commitment.

One day, Julie, one of the women who have been part of her life, knocks on her door to give her a little girl, who is Valentin's daughter. The woman abandons the little girl and leaves her in the care of her father.

Faced with this fact, Valentine wants to return the girl to her mother. To do this, he begins a trip to Los Angeles, where he suspects that Julia works. After a series of unforeseen events, related to the crossing of borders, Valentín arrives with his daughter at the hotel where Julia supposedly works. The protagonist does not know the language, so he does not understand very well with the hotel employees. There, one of the managers ends up offering him a job so that he can support his daughter.

Seven years later, Valentine's life has changed and he has a job as a stuntman in the world of cinema. So her life has improved considerably and he lives with her daughter in a decent house.

For her part, Maggie does not know her true story, Valentine has been in charge of telling her another version of events and the girl He believes that his parents were married and that his mother, in fact, has traveled the world to carry out missions of peace.

One day, Valentine does a casting in order to find an actress who pretends to be Julie and thus make her daughter happy. However, Julie reappears with the purpose of meeting Maggie.

From that moment on, the relationship between father and daughter is no longer the same, as the girl discovers the lies that her father has told her throughout her life. Julie takes Valentine to court to get the girl back, and he does everything he can to avoid losing Maggie, even changing jobs.

Later, the judge determines that Maggie's custody should go to Valentine. But Julie, far from conforming, asks for a paternity test in which it is discovered that Valentin is not the girl's real father. However, Maggie is determined to spend her life with the man who raised her and together they return to Mexico.

Finally, Julie travels to Acapulco to spend time with her daughter. Until, due to heart failure, the girl dies.

Analysis

From immaturity to immediate maturity

The film starts with a child (Valentin) whose father constantly subjects him to fear to, supposedly, make him face his fears and thereby raise a brave being in the face of adversity life.

But, the reality is that with his intentions the only thing that Johnny Bravo achieved was to educate a person with something similar to what is known as Peter Pan syndrome. Valentine is nothing more than a man who is afraid to grow up and admit the roles that, in theory, would correspond to him because of his age. Also, his biggest fear is commitment.

But from one day to the next, one of his innumerable partners comes to him with an unexpected baby, a girl who leads down the road to maturity, and it becomes the only commitment Valentine has ever had in his lifetime.

Another consequence of the strict education that the protagonist received from his of his father is precisely to abandon the teachings of his father so as not to instill them in his daughter Maggie.

But what does he get out of it? Valentin is a permissive man, the complete opposite of his father.

An ideal world"

The protagonist has invented an ideal world so that his daughter does not suffer and does not know that, truly, her mother abandoned her with just a few months. He has created for her an "exemplary" mother who is dedicated to doing good in the world linked to her recognized faces. She even tries to bring her idea to life and does a casting to get her daughter a "real" mother.

But is it okay to lie to protect? What happens when that kind of "bubble" that separates fiction from truth breaks?

A stroke of reality

Maggie soon learns the truth about her past and, from one moment to the next, her world falls apart. Julie returns to regain custody of her daughter and faces Valentín in a legal dispute.

And, in that moment, the film takes a turn from humor to drama. Well, as viewers, we wonder how a person can claim his rights over someone he abandoned. But, the sadness increases when a paternity test confirms that Valentin is not Maggie's father. Here, a debate appears that begins with the question, is the parent who raises or the one who conceives?

The answer is directly given by the minor, who decides to escape with Valentín to Mexico, even facing the possibility of starting a new life with her mother in New York. The film once again offers us a song about friendship and the complicity relationship between two people destined for unconditional love, father-child affection.

From comedy to drama

Is it possible that the combination of humor and drama results in a success story? The film goes from comedy to drama. Especially from the middle of the movie.

One of the "star" ingredients in seeking laughter is the clichéd use of culture shock as an unquestionable formula for humor. Valentin is a man who never learns English and whose bilingual daughter uses her command of English to put him in all kinds of embarrassing situations.

Great learnings

Until the end of the film, the viewer does not know about Maggie's illness, rather, he thinks that it is Valentine who is at the end of his life.

It is in the last minutes when we witness a kind of "moral", the great life lesson to which Valentine has submitted, who ends up wondering what the peculiar education that his his father. Then he realizes that nothing would have been possible without his experience as a parent.

Finally, we are witnesses to a teaching that is as accurate as life itself: you have to keep going in the face of adversity because, sometimes, blows are the greatest lessons to face life:

There are stronger blows in life than being thrown from the ravine at 6 years old, I will always carry with me the memory of the two greatest loves of my life, the first, he taught me how to be prepared to face life, and the second, he taught me how to face life without being prepared... and... from there the two continue to teach me how to face life, without they.

Distribution

Valentin Bravo (Eugenio Derbez)

He is a man that his father tried to instill in him courage. For this, since he was a child, he was subjected to extreme situations that, far from helping him overcome small and big fears, led him to have a horror of commitment. His life changes unexpectedly with the arrival of his daughter, with whom he moves to Los Angeles.

Maggie (Loreto Peralta)

She is the daughter of Julie and Valentin. The girl has a great imagination and does not know the truth about her parents. Valentin has configured an ideal life for her, which makes some children in her class make fun of the stories that the young woman tells about her family.

Julie Weston (Jessica Lindsey)

He met Valentin when he was on vacation in Mexico. Later he had her daughter and, unable to take care of her, he left her with her father. Years later, Julie returns with the intention of recovering her daughter.

Juan Bravo (Hugo Stiglitz)

He is known as "Johnny Bravo" and is the father of Valentin, who wants to eradicate fear from the life of his son. To do this, he puts it to the test on several occasions, including encouraging the boy to jump into the void to fall into the water.

Frank Ryan (Daniel Raymont)

He is the friend of Valentín Bravo and his greatest advisor and accomplice.