Dario Yazbek Bernal
Juan Pablo
I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me
2023
1h 57m
Director: Luis Fernando Frías de la Parra
Overview
A writer's career — and entire life — suddenly goes off script when he falls prey to a dangerous web of criminals right before moving to Barcelona.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
5 min readThe Joke’s on You: How I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me Turns Laughter Into a Trap
I’ve seen this trick before. A man walks into a bar, or a bank, or a PhD program, and before you know it, he’s in over his head, drowning in a scheme that’s equal parts farce and nightmare. It’s the setup for a thousand comedies, from The Big Lebowski to In Bruges.
But I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me, Fernando Frías de la Parra’s darkly comic thriller, doesn’t just play the joke—it weaponizes it. The film lures you in with the promise of a good laugh, then slowly tightens the screws until you’re not sure whether to chuckle or wince. By the end, you’re left wondering: Was any of this funny to begin with?
Frías de la Parra, whose previous film I’m No Longer Here explored the melancholy of displacement through the lens of a Mexican cholombiano subculture, here turns his gaze to another kind of dislocation: the intellectual who thinks he’s smarter than the system. Juan Pablo (Dario Yazbek Bernal) is a writer moving to Barcelona for a PhD, a man who fancies himself an observer of life rather than a participant in its messiness.
But when he stumbles into a criminal underworld—through a mix of bad luck, worse decisions, and a healthy dose of arrogance—he becomes both the author and the victim of his own story. The film’s central device, a novel-within-a-movie where Juan Pablo writes his own misadventures into fiction, is a clever nod to the ways we rewrite our lives to make sense of them. But it’s also a trap.
The more he tries to control the narrative, the more the narrative controls him.
This is where the film’s tone becomes its most interesting—and most divisive—feature. I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me is billed as a comedy, but its humor is the kind that sticks in your throat. There’s a scene early on where Juan Pablo, desperate to impress a group of shady acquaintances, improvises a story about his nonexistent criminal past. The way Yazbek Bernal delivers the lines—equal parts desperate and delusional—is so painfully funny that you almost miss the moment when the joke curdles.
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThe cartel farce started in visa hell
Fernando Frias de la Parra told Morelia he first read Juan Pablo Villalobos's novel in 2017, while I'm No Longer Here kept stalling. Juan Daniel Garcia Trevino, that film's lead, was denied a US visa three times. Frias said there is no formula for adapting a book. "The admiration I had for this work dictated the path too." I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me premiered at the 21st Morelia International Film Festival on 22 October 2023. Alexis Ayala, Natalia Solian, Dario Yazbek Bernal, latestnetflix.com contends, and producer Arturo Sampson sat the press conference. Netflix dated the global stream to 22 November. 
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Proceso called it Frias's third feature, a Mexico-Spain production from Zeta Studios and Exile Content, running 117 minutes and 54 seconds. Maria Camila Arias wrote with Frias. Villalobos won the Premio Herralde in 2016 for the Spanish title No voy a pedirle a nadie que me crea. Proceso quoted the novelist saying the book tests how far a reader will believe what happens. The movie keeps that dare in the English name. Wikipedia lists the Morelia bow and a slot in Mar del Plata's international competition. ,
Do not hang this on the wrong director
Older blurbs sometimes pinned We Are the Flesh on Frias. That film is Emiliano Rocha Minter's. Frias's Netflix calling card is I'm No Longer Here, the Monterrey cumbia exile drama. The new one is a black comedy thriller about a writer who falls into a criminal network on the way to a Barcelona doctorate. Netflix Media Center repeats the synopsis. Juan Pablo travels with girlfriend Valentina. Before they leave Mexico he is pulled into a job that follows him to Catalonia. He writes the novel of the mess while the mess gets worse. , ,
Dario Yazbek Bernal plays Juan Pablo. Remezcla spent 2018 explaining to English readers that he is Gael Garcia Bernal's younger half-brother, the House of Flowers heartthrob with the curls. Natalia Solian plays opposite him. Anna Castillo is the Spanish-side name. Alexis Ayala, Carmen Beato, Juan Minujin, and Bruna Cusi fill the rest. Netflix's trailer sits on YouTube. Nobody printed a salary fight. The industry item is an adaptation that sat in a director's bag during visa delays, then landed on the same streamer that made I'm No Longer Here a calling card, one month after Morelia clapped. , ,
That is the column. A Herralde novel, a visa office, a Morelia premiere, and a Netflix Thursday. If the title sounds like a shrug, that is the joke Villalobos already told. Frias put Yazbek in the frame and asked the audience to believe a writer could get that lost on the way to a PhD. ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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