Adapted from Juan Pablo Villalobos’ 2020 novel of the same name, I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me is a 2023 comedy-thriller film recently released on Netflix. The film follows the journey of a young student named Juan Pablo, who has come to Barcelona on a scholarship to pursue his doctorate on the limits of humor in 20th-century Latin American literature. Well, his subject itself is somehow related to the film’s storyline and the audience’s perspective. The narrative explores various aspects of humor to demonstrate how the origins of a particular humor influence how people perceive it.
Spoilers Ahead.
I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me (2023) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis
The film starts with the camera following a notebook in a trash box. When the trash box is cleared, the notebook falls into the hands of a random person. The person reads, and we enter into the life of Juan Pablo. We get to know his relationship with his cousin Lorenzo, who used to be the bad boy in the family. He always finds a way to get himself into a troubling situation, and this is why, as they grow older, Juan Pablo tries to ignore him as much as possible.
But, since Lorenzo loves him very much, he calls him before Juan Pablo is about to leave for Barcelona in a couple of days. He asks him to come and meet some people related to his upcoming big project. When Juan Pablo arrives at the spot, he finds out that Lorenzo is tied up in a chair, and some people are very angry with him. Suddenly, they shoot Lorenzo right in front of him, and Juan Pablo loses his conscience. When he wakes up, a guy named Chucky talks to him on the phone and tells him to bring Pablo’s girlfriend, Valentina, to Barcelona with him.
How is Juan blackmailed by the Lawyer in Barcelona?
First of all, bringing Valentina along with him is not a great plan. They have a fight over it, and they break up. But, on the plane to Barcelona, Juan Pablo is brought down and asked by Chucky to bring Valentina along with him no matter what. Juan gets the sense of how influential these people are, as they literally delayed the flight to cancel Juan’s departure without Valentina. So he brings her with him to Barcelona without letting her know anything about Chucky or his men.
Right after arriving in Barcelona, Juan talks with the Lawyer on the phone, who asks him to switch his subject from humor to gender studies. The subject is not his strong suit, but since it is a question of life and death, he prepares himself. The main reason behind this is that he needs to get close to a student named Laia Carbonell, who is an intern in gender studies under Professor Ripoll. Juan Pablo does so without having much to oppose the Lawyer and starts humiliating himself in the class; however, he gets notified by Laia in the middle of all this.
How does Juan use Valentina to get close to Laia?
The lawyer tells Juan that he needs to get intimate with Laia so that he can get into her inner circle. But when Juan tries to get close to Laia, she tells him that she is a lesbian. Juan then tells the lawyer about the situation, and he informs him that he knew from the beginning. This is the very reason why Juan was asked to bring Valentina along with him. So, what does Juan do? He has been trying to write a novel for a long time, and he knows how to work with the characters.
He thinks of the situation as a chapter of the novel and lets Valentina flow under the circumstances. His relationship with Valentina hasn’t been good. They were not even talking, so in a comfortable atmosphere, Valentina finds herself dancing like there is no tomorrow. Since Laia has invited them both, she sees Valentina as a free soul, which attracts her intuitive mind. Her mind is filled with curiosity, and since she is a student of gender studies, she likes to get intimate with people’s emotions.
What does the Lawyer want from Juan?
So, in a way, Juan’s plan is successful as his bond with Laia only grows stronger. However, Valentina has finally left him for good but doesn’t leave Barcelona yet. As time progresses, Juan Pablo finally meets with the lawyer, who tells him to introduce him as his Godfather to Laia and an old friend to her dad, Ori. Juan does so, and the Lawyer finally meets with Ori. We finally understand that the Lawyer is using Ori, one of the most powerful politicians on the Catalan side of the country, to continue his drug cartel.
The Lawyer also learns that someone has informed Ori about Juan’s involvement with the Lawyer. The Lawyer’s men grab the man and tie him up. Juan is tasked with shooting the man with a gun. But when he hesitates, the Lawyer mildly threatens him about hurting his family. Juan kills the man and loses a part of his soul right at that moment. Later, Valentina seeks help from her new-found friend, Jimmi. She asks him to threaten Juan a little bit for leaving her in such a manner. Jimmi does so, but they do not know Juan is protected by the drug cartel.
So, with the help of the police, Jimmi is easily recognized, and the police give them a fair warning. Amidst this, Valentina meets with a female police officer named Laia, who seems to be nicer than anyone she has met in Barcelona so far. Unbeknownst to her, Laia is going to be her last hope in the upcoming days of tension and despair.
I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me (2023) Movie Ending Explained:
What does Valentina find out about Lorenzo?
On the eve of the New Year, life starts to change for both Juan and Valentina. Valentina has decided to leave Barcelona, but before that, she wants to meet with Juan one last time. Juan, on the other hand, is on a train with one of the Lawyer’s men. Valentina comes to the place where Juan is supposed to stay, but she ends up babysitting Ale. Ale wants to watch some movies as Valentina takes away her phone to call her dad. Impatient, Ale then grabs Juan Pablo’s laptop.
Valentina stops her from going through Juan’s laptop when, accidentally, a video message plays. It is from Lorenzo, describing how he once met Laia without knowing his father’s influence. Valentina gets to know for the first time why Juan Pablo did not want to bring her to Barcelona in the first place. Lorenzo says that when he tells the Lawyer about Laia’s father, he plans to start the project. By project, he means spreading his drug cartel business here in Spain. Lorenzo was killed because of the delay in the project.
What happens to Juan?
Valentina has sent the video to Juan. He sees that in the video, Lorenzo tells him that he has the hunch that the Lawyer will kill him. But he finds a failsafe option for Juan, as he says to find Chucky and manipulate him to come to his side. Lorenzo says he has a hunch that Chucky is fed up with the Lawyer; so it will be easy to team up with him and go against the Lawyer before the Lawyer decides to get rid of Juan.
Being cunning is not Juan’s strongest suit. So, he thinks of a different plan, which unfolds way more differently than he expected. He goes to the Lawyer directly and tells them that Chucky is perhaps planning to kill him. Well, it was only Lorenzo’s hunch, and he trusted that. What he could have done is talk to Chucky, get his perspective on the Lawyer and then decide where to go from there. But Juan Pablo decides to take a new route. As it turns out, there isn’t much dissatisfaction between Chucky and the Lawyer.
Even if Chucky has something in mind, since he overhears (perhaps) everything that Juan tells the Lawyer, he now knows that Juan is the potential threat that needs to be removed from the equation. Even if Chucky has planned to kill the Lawyer, he cannot do it since the Lawyer has already heard this from Juan Pablo. So, when the Lawyer instructs Chucky to do what needs to be done, he shoots Juan and kills him. Juan’s novel remains unfinished as the author gives away his life in the hands of a drug cartel.
What does the Drug Cartel do to Valentina and Ale?
Later that night, Valentina finds out about the novel that Juan was writing on his laptop. The events are based on whatever has been happening right after Lorenzo’s death. She makes some changes so that no one finds out about Juan’s involvement in all these, and then brings out a copy of the unfinished novel. She then meets with police officer Laia and shares all the details with her. Laia understands that even if it cannot be proved to the authorities, the events are true.
Laia tells her that she will give it a good look and let her know what should be done. But when she looks back at Valentina and Ale, she witnesses them disappearing from the road in broad daylight. One of the Lawyer’s men walks on the street from where Valentina and Ale are kidnapped. Years passed, and Inspector Laia failed to do anything about the cartel. Juan, Valentina, and Ale were never found again. Disappointed, Inspector Laia decides to throw the novel into a trash bin.
The film starts in that trash bin only when a random old man finds out about the novel and starts reading it. The title I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me is inspired by an adult film Juan once saw with his cousin, Lorenzo. The old man is disappointed with the storyline and throws the novel away. However, as an audience, you won’t find a better story at this moment. Go watch it immediately if you haven’t already.
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