Núria Hosta, Mercè Lleixà and Blanca Pàmpols are three lucky girls. They have found three delicious female characters with which all actresses dream of as if they were the love of our lives; their characters are looking for just that: the love of their lives ­or maybe they aren't looking for pick up the first man that asks them their name. And they are in luck. But, to be lucky, you have to take risks.

"WHAT'S YOUR BET, MARIE" is a comedy about luck. And it shows us, without any pomposity, but with dazzling wit, that to be lucky you first have to gamble. Marc Martínez, Pep Munné and Fernando Guillén are also three lucky guys. The characters they play are terribly attractive, credible in their initial confusion that leads them, wildly and without warning, to the apartment of three charming girls. In that apartment the three "partenaires" are stripped throughout the film, in awkward situations that become the great scoring system of a motion picture, the lucky number of which is three. Ventura Pons is a lucky director. He has a fortunate intuition and has known how to develop it thanks to the long professional career behind him, and a talent that, in all honesty, that I had not seen him show with such confidence and naturalness until this pure, simple, unpretentious, unsnobish, but absolutely moving comedy. Pons knows that, in a good comedy, the director should not be too apparent, but must work very much: he has worked out the sequences with straightforwardness and elegance, and has carried this amusing story of interrelated love affairs, with a steady hand.

The audience is in luck because Catalonian comedy is in luck. All this was a bet, a mystery, a "let's see what happens". A series of examples that tend to show that this genre works if there is someone behind it that decides to take a chance on his talent. But, in this world, everything is a bet. A trio of girls make a bet to see if they can pick up the first guy that asks them their name. And it works out. Indeed! If you see an amused and convinced audience coming out of a theater, saying that they have seen an amusing comedy that relates to themselves, I wouldn't ask the title of the film. I would just go in, and I bet whatever you want that you will find it is Ventura Pons' latest film. What's your bet?

VENTURA PONS' BEST FILM

Pons moves the film with confident assurance, slowly at first, to then gradually speed up the rhythm for the frantic climax, where ­like in genuine vaudeville­ all the characters, and others, pile into one scene with hilarious effects. And his theatrical experience as a director helps him to obtain a maximum result from a group of actors in wich veterans rub shoulders with newcomers ­Mercè Lleixà/Marie, with a sense of comedy as considerable as her nose, will be a revelation to many­ without mentioning Amparo Moreno, a "bigger than life" gipsy who puts to good use the many wisecracks offered to her by the dialogue.

Without annoying pretensions or another objective than pure amusement, without post-modern whims ­Here each character is what they seem to be, and nothing more­ this film gives off a magnificent, infrequent and contagious "joie de vivre".

"WHAT YOUR BET, MARIE?" can well be what "Boom Boom" was last year; in other words, that film that reconciles you with comedy. It is refreshing, overflowing, with joy and slightly vivacious, with a wink, and in the classical comedy style. Without blushing, a basic concept that this film offers with generosity must be restored: entertaintment. The script blends many situations, each as entangled as the others; and many characters, a new one every two minutes until mixed, are stirred and served in the final sequence, in the apartment, making the hysterical happening explode. And the shooting advances, ipso facto, with an evenly accelerated acceleration, without letting up, and reaches a pace adequate to the genre, without which a comedy is not a comedy taht hooks you.

A final word for the actors. They are all fresh and spontaneous, but Amparo Moreno deserves a monument and a stack of medals. The most amusing and delightful part of the film is her quaint and folkloric Macarena. You spend the rest of the film waiting for her to reappear and do her thing as, years ago, you would wait, with frenzy, the appearance of Edward Everett Horton, Eugene Pallette or Eve Arden. What a woman!