Course Completed (Asignatura aprobada) is a 1987 film from Spain directed by Jose Luis Garci.
Jose Alcantara is a successful playwright. Having reached the age of 50, he is, like most men that age, suffering a late-middle age crisis. He's temporarily staying with an old lover, a psychiatrist named Lola. He takes the time to look up Elena, another old lover, who is currently starring in a play of his; they broke up several years ago. In the middle of all this soul-searching, Jose is confronted by another person from his past, namely his grown son Edi, whom Jose has seen little of since he abandoned his family when Edi was 7. Will Jose find happiness?
Tropes:
- Alliterative Title
- Bigger Is Better in Bed: When Jose is telling Elena about all the self-doubt and depression he went through after she dumped him, after talking about the toll on his emotions, he says "I thought the other guy had a bigger one" and that the other guy must have been better in bed.
- Call-Back: When Edi is pouring out his heart to his father, he mentions how Jose always used to leave a glass of water by his bed when Edi was a boy, and how he missed that when he was older. Later, when Edi has dozed off on Jose's couch, Jose leaves a glass of water on the end table.
- Creative Closing Credits: The film ends with Jose watching an Austrian orchestra on TV. On his TV, as the Stock Footage of the orchestra plays, the closing credits for the movie also roll by.
- Disappeared Dad: Jose himself, who apparently could no longer bear the company of Edi's mom, and left the house when Edi was seven. Jose says Edi should be thankful for the chance to be his own man, but Edi is a little more cynical about the matter.
- Driven to Suicide: Lola, depressed by her handsome young lover leaving her, kills herself by driving her car off a road and into a ravine.
- '80s Hair: Elena has some spectacularly poofy '80s Hair.
- Headbutt of Love: When Lola is talking about how depressed she is after her young lover left, Jose does the Headbutt of Love and tells her how much he cares about her. This does not stop Lola from killing herself soon after.
- Hollywood Midlife Crisis: Jose has the typical movie midlife crisis in which a wealthy but aging man takes a break from work for a while and ponders his life choices and how he's become who he is.
- Leave the Camera Running: There are several long takes. The opening shot, where Jose talks directly to the camera about how he's come to where he is while the opening credits roll, runs four minutes without a cut. Later, the scene where Edi talks about his dad abandoning him as a child, then drops the bomb about having HIV, goes five minutes without a cut.
- Mrs. Robinson: Lola talks about how she really, really likes young men, like 20-year-old men, and how she still likes them even as she ages into her forties. She mentions how no one bats an eye if a 40+ man dates a 20-year-old woman, but people shame her when she goes out with younger men.
- No Fourth Wall: The opening scene, in which Jose looks straight at the camera for four minutes and talks about his Hollywood Midlife Crisis and how he's run off to this seaside town because he can't think of anything better to do. After this opening monologue the fourth wall is re-imposed and Jose does not address the camera again.
- Proscenium Reveal: Elena is first seen on the phone, telling a man about how she loves him but "we can't go on this way." The camera then cuts to a distance shot to reveal that she is on a stage performing a play, namely one of Jose's.
- Surprise Incest: In-Universe. Jose has a side gig where he calls into a radio show and tells stories for the listeners. His first story is about a man who is released from prison after a 20-year sentence, goes home, meets a woman, and has sex with her, only to realize too late that she is his daughter.
- Twist Ending: In-Universe, the stories that Jose tells to a radio audience feature these. One involves a man who has sex with a woman after getting out of prison only to discover that it's a case of Surprise Incest. Another has a person in a cell looking out of the bars and wondering about the jailers, only to reveal that the protagonist is a baby in a crib and the "jailers" are the baby's parents.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Edi comes home and tells his father that he has contracted the AIDS virus, and while he looks perfectly healthy, he'll probably be dead within the year. Later dialogue reveals that he was bullshitting in order to screw with his Disappeared Dad.
