Guto is a screenwriter for television shows and comedy films. His professional life takes place between meetings in which everyone arrives late, the need to please producers, and the difficulty of enduring boring actors. He dreams of writing a real screenplay, but his fight for survival requires him to endlessly rewrite texts he already thought were good.
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For background, we’ll cover the behind-the-scenes aspects of audiovisual production and all its influences. Producers always believe that their work must be simple and popular in order to get good box office revenue and an audience. One of them said, “You can’t create a copyright here.” Screenwriters want to reflect reality and have fun at the same time. And the audience can either laugh as the team rejoices, or remain silent as everyone is disappointed.
Guto can barely say what he thinks and ends up creating two catchphrases. He says it’s fun even if the movie isn’t good. And when it comes to drama, he says it’s intense, and this intensity can be interpreted in different ways depending on who listens to the comments.
In Father’s Pool, a novel that has just arrived in bookstores, readers are confronted with the fact that laughter is also a product, and that it itself is often born out of complex and difficult conflicts. Author Beto Silva knows this subject well. He is a comedian, actor, screenwriter, and author. For almost 20 years, he wrote and starred in the highly successful show “Caseta & Planeta Urgente” on TV Globo from 1992 to 2010. As a writer, he has published five books, including “Julio Disappeared” (2005) and “Jokes Save Lives” (2008).
“Father’s Pool” is notable for its ironic treatment of both professional and sentimental situations, as well as its mocking and creative language. For example, when discussing his own marriage, Guto notes that declining ratings for his own TV show may have contributed to the decline in ratings for his wedding.
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It means two expressions. The first one is “a sunny place”. And he comments: “Maybe this is cool in American movies, where the story takes place in a cold place, and it’s good to have a place in the sun. But in Brazil, if you go looking for a place in the sun, you have to use a lot of sunscreen!” In between going to and from work, the main character realizes that being in the sun can cause serious burns. The second is the “window of opportunity.” According to him, no one will say what floor of the building the person is on. “The Window of Opportunity only works if we’re on the ground floor. If we’re not, va-vau!”
The protagonist is very flirtatious and is captivated by his imagination with Martinha, Camila, Taïs and many other people who occupy his bed. However, romantic relationships can bring both joy and headaches.
Antonio is Guto’s five-year-old son who develops a very close relationship with him and ends up teaching his father life lessons, as many children tend to do.
As the novel progresses, we delve into the main character’s family life. His mother, Donna Selma, tries to convince her son to get money from his missing father. And here we come face to face with one of the most iconic characters in the story. His father disappeared, changed his identity, ruined his company, and moved to Argentina. Guto ends up facing a mystery as he searches for his father. To resolve these and other questions, he contacts a detective named Leomir, who comments, “Who would take someone named Leomir seriously?”
Beto Silva often misses an opportunity to display some introspective humor. Faced with many dead ends, Guto says, “When I have to think before making a decision, the question keeps wandering in my head, acting like a lazy person who lies in someone else’s bed, throws the blanket on the floor, and still does the same thing, and runs around like he’s ruining everything and filling the sheets with cookie crumbs.”
In the end, we are faced with a novel that in many ways fulfills the intention of making people laugh, and at the same time reflects Brazilian life and mass communication with its complexities.
Elias Fajardo is a writer
“Father’s Pool”
author: Beto Silva. Publisher: 7 characters. page: 220. price: 84 reals.
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