Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Little Switzerland’ on Netflix, a Comedy Exploiting the Rich Comedic Well of Castillian-vs.-Basque Humor (Or Something)

With the Spanish comedy The Little Switzerland, Netflix adds another international feature to the content pile, which keeps getting bigger and ever more daunting to navigate. Don’t worry, WE’RE HERE FOR YOU, sniffing for gems so you don’t have to. This film is an offbeat tale set in a fictional small town whose denizens are all odd ducks who know each other’s business all too well — which feeds the ever-hungry gaping maw of quirk. But is it funny?

THE LITTLE SWITZERLAND: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The Castillian town of Telleria is a postcard-worthy village flanked by gorgeous mountain scenery — but it’s in Basque country, and the residents would rather be considered such. It’s a long-running concern until local-boy-done-good/son-of-the-mayor Gorka (Jon Plazaola) and his art historian friend Yolanda (Maggie Civantos) come for a visit, and discover the tomb of Walter Tell, William Tell’s son, hidden for centuries beneath the local church.

Perhaps you don’t recall that Walter was the kid with the apple on his head, and William is the fellow who shot it with expert crossbow marksmanship — which makes him a great folk hero, for reasons likely explained to me in middle-school history class, but lost to the withering sands of memory. Anyway, the discovery gives Telleria claim to be the domain of Switzerland, so the mayor, Antolin (Ramon Barea), lobbies the Swiss government for acknowledgment of such. Meanwhile, the local citizenry don lederhosen, exhale into alpenhorns, learn to yodel and make a stupid-ass hooray-for-Switzerland promotional video.

With the wacky plot backdrop established, the film becomes a whirling maelstrom of nutty characters fulfilling their destinies as joke-delivery and medium-to-light-dramatic constructs. Gorka and Yolanda share as-yet-unexpressed feelings for each other — although she has a boyfriend (Pepe Rapazote), and mayoral assistant Nathalie (Ingrid Garcia Jonsson) nurses old feelings for Gorka, despite being in a relationship with goofball sculptor Iker (Lander Otaola). Revuelta (Enrique Villen) and Anibarro (Kandido Uranga) are two crotchety old guffs who agree on nothing except that the whole Swiss-annexation thing is dumb as hell, and the only answer for it is a little light terrorism. And the local priest, Don Anselmo (Secun de la Rosa), has, for some reason, hidden a crateful of heavy artillery in the Sanctuary of the Dull (which is an actual name in the script, so it’s not critical snark, but rather, hard reportage). This all seems like an atomic bomb just waiting to go off!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain except, you know, Spanish.

Performance Worth Watching: In this collection of thin, wacky characters, Civantos shows considerable charisma and charm. Somebody here has to be sincere now and then, and she does it quite well.

Memorable Dialogue: Gorka, finally connecting romantically with Yolanda: “Yolanda, I’ve been waiting for you to say that all this time. It’s perfect. You, me…”

Yolanda: “…Walter Tell’s putrefied corpse…”

Sex and Skin: Nothing heavier than shirts-off/bras-on smoochyface.

Our Take: Speaking as someone from the middle of Michigan, I worry that the subtlety of Castillian-Basque rivalry comedy is just too provincially specific to cross over to Netflix audiences worldwide. I understand why it’s funny that Telleria would try to endear itself to Swiss officials by changing its name to Tellstadt. Beyond that, we’re here to laugh, not pause the movie to consult Wikipedia.

The movie’s heart is in the right place, though. It tries hard to be a silly diversion, and has a little something to say about how collectives seeking identity shouldn’t look without, but rather within their own idiosyncratic natures — or something like that. I dunno, it’s colorful and mostly endearing, but as a collection of jokes and light romance, it never really gets much of comedic traction. It’s deeply silly, hobbled by an intrusive score and ends with a zany credits sequence in which the cast sings and dances to a dumb song. It’s ultimately a trifle, much ado about doodly-squat.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Anyone not living in the middle part of the Castillian-Basque-Swiss Venn diagram will have their stickwithitness significantly challenged. And those who endure will most likely react with a shrug.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream The Little Switzerland on Netflix