Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, Dile Que No Soy Malo) Review

Joel Alfonso Vargas’ debut feature Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, Dile Que No Soy Malo) is a poignant, quietly infuriating look at how circumstance makes us who we are.

Mad Bills to Pay‘s protagonist is the nineteen-year-old Rico (Juan Collado) who lives with his “mami” Andrea (Yohanna Florentino) and his sister Sally (Nathaly Navarro) in a Dominican-American community in the Bronx. When the film begins, we are right there with him as he goes about his day. He bickers with his sister, gets told off by his mom, parties, flirts with girls, plays video games, wanders through the beach with a cart full of homemade “nutcracker” cocktails he’s trying to sell, and does it all over again the next day.

On the night of their mom’s birthday, Rico and Sally surprise her with a cake and a present – a scratchcard, which a moved Anna treats with the reverence of someone who knows that that piece of paper has the power to change their lives forever – and we witness a rare family moment that tells us everything we need to know about them. “What did you wish for?” asks the loud and chatty Sally after Anna blows out the candle, and she humbly, tenderly replies, “I wish for a lot of love, y paz, y tranquilidad,” suddenly looking much younger than the number “40” written on the candle. But age doesn’t mean all that much in Mad Bills to Pay, where every single character is stuck in the same cycle, destined to grow up within the blink of an eye and turn into the toxic role model that shaped them.

And destiny quite literally comes knocking on Rico’s door when a girl with that exact name enters the picture and changes the family’s dynamics for good. “I’m going to be a father,” Rico tells his incredulous mother, who gets even more upset when she learns that the girl is sixteen. Soon, Destiny (Destiny Checo) moves in with them, and it’s not long before Rico’s mom asks the dreaded question: “Cuál es el plan?”. Needless to say, Destiny and Rico’s respective “plans” couldn’t be more different.

Mad Bills to Pay is the rare film that’s not only incredibly well-written, but also shot and edited in a way that allows viewers to watch it unfold in the here and now. From the very first shot of the movie, we are catapulted into Rico’s world, with static shots and abrupt, calculated cuts that show us exactly what we need to see, and at time even leave us alone with the frame after the characters have left. We are active participants in a movie that doesn’t shy away from showing us the flaws of its protagonists, yet never judges them for their mistakes or immaturity. There are moments of beauty and even poetry in the film, and then there are scenes where you’ll be so irritated by Rico’s behaviour that a strategically placed “baaaaaabe” from our 19-year-old protagonist will make you want to punch the screen.

Because, in the end, Mad Bills to Pay is mainly about Rico. Not unlike the kind of characters Sean Baker usually crafts – like Red Rocket‘s Mikey (Simon Rex) or Anora‘s Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), two immature, pathetic men whom we can’t help but find endearing because we understand exactly why they are the way they are – Rico can be an extremely frustrating character. His idea of being a father, and becoming the “man of the house,” involves “taking care of” Destiny by having her stay at home while he keeps living his life exactly as he did before.

Not only is the concept of responsibility completely alien to him, but, in this scenario, Destiny would also have to assume the role of Rico’s mother, on top of their child’s, with her entire existence revolving around him: a boy who prioritizes Playstation over medical appointments, and who can’t even wake up early enough to keep a job for more than a couple of days. And then there are the titular “mad bills to pay,” but that’s another story.

Yet, at the same time, Vargas – who’s not only the film’s writer, director and producer, but also co-editor with Irfan Van Tuijl – imbues Rico with such innocence that it’s impossible for us to hate him even when he’s at his worst. We understand that Rico is the way he is because, as the son of a single mother and a member of a patriarchal community with a specific set of values, he’s never had a healthy example of masculinity.

A key scene in the movie sees Destiny, Sally and his mom trying to explain to him that the child won’t even be able to go to school if he’s not vaccinated. Rico’s answer is to simply insist that his child won’t be vaccinated, refusing to listen and without even providing an explanation, because he doesn’t have one. Not only is he still behaving like a child – throwing a fit when someone disagrees with him instead of having an actual conversation – but it’s so evident that he’s simply doing exactly what he’s seen other people do, and possibly even turning into his absent father, despite his good intentions.

Vargas’s intimate, assured direction and the authenticity of this story, told in cinéma vérité-style, reminded me a lot of Andrea Arnold’s movies, even more so since Vargas’s film was also made with a small crew and street-cast leads. Both Juan Collado and Destiny Checo excel here, showing a maturity that’s way beyond their years, and the story itself is so raw and unpredictable that Rico and Destiny feel like two actual people whose lives you’ll want to keep watching long after the credits roll. It’s rare for a film to achieve the kind of balance that Vargas and his cast and crew have accomplished here, and the fact that this is a debut makes Mad Bills to Pay an even rarer gem.

Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, Dile Que No Soy Malo) premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 17, 2025. Read our Berlin Film Festival reviews and our list of 20 films to watch at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival!