Spanish Affair (2014 film)

Spanish Affair (Spanish: Ocho apellidos vascos; lit. 'Eight Basque surnames') is a 2014 Spanish comedy film directed by Emilio Martínez-Lázaro.^[2] It premiered in Spain on 14 March 2014. Six weeks after its release, it became the second biggest box-office hit ever in Spain, behind Avatar.^[3]

Amaia is a Basque woman visiting Seville in Andalusia for her hen party when she learns her fiancé, Antxón, has abandoned her and left her with extreme debt. She meets bartender Rafa when he performs a comedy routine mocking Basque's, and he is interested when she resists his seduction techniques. Amaia ends up sleeping at his house and forgets her purse. Against his friends' advice, Rafa decides to follow her to the Basque Country despite having never left Seville before.

In Basque Country, Rafa befriends the widowed Andalusian Merche who moved there with her Basque husband. Amaia is horrified by Rafa's arrival and kicks him out; he attempts to leave but is arrested after his lit cigarette causes a fire. In jail, he fabricates stories of being a member of the Basque revolution to avoid fights with the Basque inmates. Amaia, meanwhile, is forcibly reunited with her estranged father, Koldo, and is unable to tell him about Antxón jilting her, so bails Rafa out on the condition he pretend to be Antxón until Koldo's departure the next week.

Rafa reluctantly impersonates Antxón as a Basque boasting of a stock featuring eight traditional Basque surnames (Gabilondo, Urdangarín, Zubizarreta, Arguiñano from the father and Igartiburu, Erentxun, Otegi and Clemente from the mother, even though Clemente is not authentically Basque).^{[4][n. 1]} Merche pretends to be Antxón's mother, Anne, and attempts to genuinely set up Rafa and Amaia despite both of their reservations. Rafa is also forced to deal with the Basque rebels who now view him as a leader. He attempts to flee multiple times but is continuously prevented by Amaia.

As the situation grows, Rafa and Amaia find themselves genuinely catching feelings for one another. Koldo insists on remaining for the wedding, so they plan to have Amaia jilt 'Antxón' at the altar. However, Amaia is unable to go through with it and ends up saying "I do". Rafa flees back to Seville with his friends, who gate crashed the wedding believing he was kidnapped. Koldo confronts Merche, but they end up sleeping together, and he is mortified the following day upon finding Spanish memorabilia around her house. Amaia admits the truth, and they finally make amends. She travels to where she and Rafa met in Seville and declares her love for him, which he joyfully accepts.

The weekend of its premiere, the film gathered an audience of 404,020 which resulted in box office grossing of 2.72 million euros.^[6] On its second weekend its grossing increased by 56%, third best behind The Impossible and Avatar in its first ten days with a total 4.4 million euros.^[7] By April it became the most watched Spanish film in Spain with more than 6.5 million viewers and the second film with the greatest box office grossing in Spain, only behind Avatar, with a box-office of more than 45 million euros (more than 62 million dollars).^[8] It has grossed US$77 million in Spain^[9] and a total of US$78.7 million internationally.^[10][1]

Critics were divided about the film, but were mostly positive. For magazine Cinemanía, Carlos Marañón stressed that the movie was "extremely funny".^[11] This comment was repeated in many reviews that highlighted the film is "funny",^[12] and for some, "inspired and bright".^[13] Federico Marín Bellón journalist of ABC, spoke of a "brave and timely movie",^[12] highlighting another aspect, the opportunity of its theme, which has also been emphasized by most critics who often compared it to the French film Welcome to the Sticks. Writing for daily newspaper El País, Borja Valero even predicted it could be the movie of the year.^[14]

On the negative side, Luis Martínez from El Mundo, said that the film is "a bad comedy"^[15] while Jordi Costa, from El País, said the development was irregular and ended catastrophically. Fausto Fernández, in the magazine Fotogramas, labelled it as impersonal and described its development as flat.^[16]

A sequel, Ocho apellidos catalanes (English: Eight Catalan Surnames) was released on 20 November 2015. Emilio Martínez-Lázaro repeated as director and Borja Cobeaga and Diego San José repeated as screenwriters. The original cast was joined by Berto Romero, Rosa Maria Sardà and Belén Cuesta.^[22]

A film with the working title Casi familia ("Almost Family") was released in 2023 as Ocho apellidos marroquís ("Eight Moroccan surnames"). Its cast does not include actors from both earlier films.^[23]