Golden Balls (Spanish: Huevos de oronote ) is a 1993 Spanish drama film directed by Bigas Luna and starring Javier Bardem (in one of his early roles), Maribel Verdú, Maria de Medeiros and Alessandro Gassmann. It is the second part of Bigas Luna's "Iberian Trilogy" after Jamón, Jamón (1992) and before The Tit and the Moon (1994).
Benito González (Bardem) is a young, flamboyant, brash and pushy engineer and construction worker who's just been done with his military service in Melilla. Upon moving to Benidorm in mainland Spain, his dream is to build the tallest building ever in the region and attract businesses in it. After leaving his girlfriend Rita (who cheated on him with his best friend Miguel), he devotes himself entirely to his ambitions, deciding to let nothing get in his way. While having an affair with Claudia (Verdú), he marries Marta (de Medeiros), the daughter of a billionaire, intending to use her father's money to realize his project. Benito then waltzes his way through a career of excess, fetishes and deceptions, and the personal conflicts he unleashes ultimately send his life spiraling down to disaster.
Not to be confused with the British game show of the same name.
Golden Balls provides examples of the following tropes:
- All Men Are Perverts: While Benito talks to Miguel about his building project at the beginning during their military service, Miguel thinks about nothing else than getting laid.
- Art Imitates Art: There are several visual references to the art of Salvador Dalí, with Benito being a big admirer of him and the way he made himself filthy rich.
- Benito drawing drawers on Claudia's naked body as if she was the Venus de Milo with Drawers. It turns out he did the same on Marta's body.
- There's a melting clock sculpture in the apartment Benito and Marta live in, much like the painting The Persistence of Memory.
- Blatant Lies: Before the polyamory thing gets going, Marta finds Claudia's red bra (with her smell) in Benito's clothes, and the only excuse he comes up with is he won it in a contest in an all-men joint. She doesn't buy it.
- Body Paint:
- At one point, Benito imitates Salvador Dalí's Venus de Milo with Drawers by drawing drawers on Claudia's naked body.
- Later, Claudia finds out he did the same with Marta.
- Boob-Based Gag: When Marta and Claudia are bonding over their hatred of Benito for what he did to them, Claudia lifts her top to reveal her breasts with drawers drawn on them... only to find out Benito did the same on Marta's body when the latter also lifts her top.
- Boom Town: Benidorm is a booming city where Benito sees a huge opportunity with his building.
- Bowdlerize: The poster on this page is that of the American release of the film. The original one
◊ with Benito doing an explicit gesture (figuratively holding his balls in provocation) was deemed too shocking there, much to the director's anger. - Conscription: Benito and Miguel finish their military service in Melilla at the beginning.
- Conspicuous Consumption: Benito."I've got two balls, why not two Rolexes? I like to have two sorts of everything."
- Determinator: Benito stops at nothing to have the building of his dreams built.
- Double Entendre: While having sex with Rita, Benito talks about his dream of "erecting" a building.
- Entitled to Have You: Upon surprising Claudia with the banker he forced her to sleep with earlier, Benito tells her she is his.
- Establishing Character Moment: In her first scene, Claudia wears a form-fitting black dress and dances very sensually on the table of a restaurant, much to the delight of all the men eating there including Benito.
- Faux Fluency: Portuguese actress Maria de Medeiros was not fluent in Spanish and had to do crash courses in the language, and learned some of her lines phonetically.
- Flipping the Bird: Claudia is clearly unhappy with Benito's Gold Digger marriage to another woman while he keeps her in a luxury room and sends her flowers anytime he can't see her (which is a lot in days). She tells him she hates those flowers, tells him to stuff them and flips him off doing so.
- Gold Digger: A male version. Benito marries Marta, a billionaire's daughter, in the hopes of using their family's wealth to finance his building's construction.
- The Immodest Orgasm:
- When Marta and Benito have sex, Maria lets out some loud moanings.
- Claudia moans quite a bit earlier, although not as loudly as Marta.
- Karaoke Box:
- Benito loves doing karaoke with Julio Iglesias songs.
- There's a karaoke session happening the night of Benito's party with Yazoo's "Only You".
- Lower-Class Lout: Marta considers Benito a "lout" due to his love of songs by Julio Iglesias.
- Macho Latino: Benito is flamboyant, brash, pushy and prone to excesses (sexual and otherwise). The Thematic Series the film itself is part of explored the darkest depths of eroticism and stereotypical Spanish machismo, with Benito being an exploitative bastard who manipulates women emotionally and sexually in that case. Also, the film's French title is Macho for this reason.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Benito has sex with Marta on the stone balcony of their villa. The day they married, it's almost as if they also did it in the wedding car.
- Polyamory: For a time, Benito, Claudia and Marta have a ménage à trois.
- Sex for Services: In order to get money from a banker, Benito has Claudia have sex with said banker. It doesn't work.
- Sexual Extortion: When Benito's building is being built, his ex-girlfriend Rita comes back at him to ask for financial help for a loan. He then forces her to have sex with him to get said help.
- Shirtless Scene:
- Benito and Miguel have a lot of shirtless scenes at the beginning, for good reasons.
- There's a shirtless bodybuilder making a show at the party Benito throws to attract movie industry investors.
- Social Climber: Benito, through and through. He looks at rich Americans with envy and concocts several Get Rich Quick Schemes to fund his gargantuan real estate project, including marrying the daughter of a billionaire.
- Spaghetti Kiss: At the beginning at the bar, Benito and Rita eat a candy from each side till their lips touch each other.
- Three-Way Sex: Ends up happening between Benito, Claudia and Marta.
- Two-Timing with the Bestie: Benito's girlfriend Rita cheats on him with his Best Friend Miguel, and he dumps her upon learning it from Miguel himself.
- Visual Innuendo: When Benito and Maria have sex, the camera pans over to a stone obelisk that has a very phallic shape at its top.
