Parents' Guide to Summer Vacation

There's no need to watch this terrible comedy. Mainstream Spanish comedies often try to recreate Hollywood formulas, but the problem is those formulas stopped being effective in the 1980s (and were problematic back then as well). In Summer Vacation, two divorced dads lie their way into temp jobs, lie to their ex-wives about where they're taking their kids, and keep lying their way out of every situation imaginable. All while being sexist, using violence as a way to solve issues, and resorting to racist jokes and gestures in order to pass as Chinese.

To say there isn't a funny moment in this film would be an understatement, as Segura, who also directed and co-wrote the film, turns each scene into something more cringe-worthy than the previous one. It's a crescendo of chaos without the charm of the Marx Brothers, a take on White masculinity that could have attempted to be a critique but instead turns men into victims even while they do wrong things without any accountability. A summer vacation? Not so much. A break from years of progress and sophistication? Absolutely.