Mad Bills to Pay’ Review: Soon-to-Be Father in the Bronx Struggles to Stay the Course in Impressively Acted Vérité Drama
By Carlos Aguilar
According To The variety Watching a friend be berated by his mother or witnessing a couple’s heated public argument comes with the uncomfortable feeling that one is intruding in a private matter. Those outbursts of emotion, often reserved for the eyes and ears of those involved, are magnified via a potent cinematic voice in writer-director Joel Alfonso Vargas’ impressively conceived and superbly acted social realist debut “Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo).” Expanded from the short film “May It Go Beautifully for You, Rico” which premiered in 2024, “Mad Bills” opens with a title card that warns “the working man is a sucker,” a succinct adage that encompasses the verité drama’s thematic essence: the tug of war between a person’s agency over t...






