‘Mad Bills To Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)’: Sundance Review

Dir/scr: Joel Alfonso Vargas. US. 2025. 101mins

Writer/director Joel Alfonso Vargas’ debut Mad Bills To Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) is an altogether more gentle viewing experience than its action-packed title suggests. This amiable, down-to-earth take on a young New Yorker’s struggles to find a role for himself has its flaws, but they can be forgiven on account of Rico (Juan Collado), its shambolic, supremely chill and ever-present protagonist. This, plus Vargas’s intimate, insider take on his Dominican American community and some interesting visuals add up to a minor-key but winning drama.

The atmospherics of a range of Bronx settings are beautifully rendered

The feature is an extension of Bronx-born Vargas’s 2023 short May It Go Beautifully For You, Rico, which played in Locarno, winning him a directing award. Featuring the same characters, cast and locations, Mad Bills To Pay will visit the Berlinale’s new Perspectives section after its Sundance premiere, and should go down well with audiences at both.

Nineteen-year-old slacker Rico (Juan Collado) leads a pretty aimless life, smoking weed, selling home-made juice and liquor cocktails called Nutcrackers on Orchard Beach in The Bronx, and hanging out with friends. His mother Andrea (Yohanna Florentino) and sister Sally (Nathaly Navarro) both consider Rico to be basically useless and are not shy about telling him so, but despite the ear-splitting shouting matches that pepper the film, their home is also a place for tenderness and celebration.

Things change when, out of the blue, Rico announces that his 16-year-old girlfriend Destiny (Destiny Checo) is pregnant. The news is thrilling to Rico, who starts shouting “I’m gonna be a Dad!” to anyone who will listen, but less so to the women in his life. Presumably thrown out of her home by her own family – a major event  barely mentioned by a script that’s sometimes too elliptical – Destiny comes to live with Rico and family, telling him she trusts him.

Things take a melancholy turn as Destiny becomes more proactive, more critical and more aware of what having a child will actually involve. Rico’s eternal optimism starts to fray. He tries to shed his slacker status by finding regular work as a cleaner, but spends a night in jail and starts to drink too much of his own concoction. In one of the more touching scenes, Rico tries reaching out to his own long-absent father, without success: this is the role model that Rico never had.

The film’s strongest scenes are also its quietest, whether we are tracking the thoughtful Rico through the streets or overhearing his tender, loving conversations with Destiny. The multiple scenes featuring family fights feel raw and authentic, sometimes painfully so, because they seem part-improvised: but at times they drag on too long, a sign of a larger problem with pacing and rhythm.

What brings it all back from the edge are the performances, especially that of Collado. He brings to Rico an engaging stoner charm, remaining defiantly chilled even when the world seems to be falling apart around him. There’s a tragedy at the heart of this young man that makes him a more complex and deeper figure than he might seem at first, because he’s yearning to be a father; something that, socially and economically, his world makes very difficult. Other performances, some of them from non-professionals, are persuasive, heightening that fly-on-the-wall feel.

The film is artfully shot by Rufai Ajala entirely on fixed camera, to interesting effect. Often the angle is so low, as though the camera was hidden, bringing an extra layer of documentary realism to the scene. At one moment, Destiny, sitting silent in the midst of another family row, becomes the calm eye of the storm. Such is the intimacy that at one point, a thrown shirt wobbles the camera. Sometimes, a scene will play out within its single frame and then the camera will continue to roll for a few seconds on an empty tableau.

The atmospherics of a range of Bronx settings are beautifully rendered, whether in the shadowy, soft-lit interiors of the family home, the bright sunshine of Orchard beach and the boardwalk bars, or the dark emptiness of the backstreets at night. Unsurprisingly music is key, featuring hip-hop, rap and sometimes older Latino tunes: even Besame Mucho gets a brief outing. Niklas Sandahl’s orchestral score is most evident during a visual homage to the Bronx but, with its plucked harp and rising crescendos, it feel oddly over-the-top.