As Luck Would Have It 2021

Roberto Gómez, a once-prominent advertising executive, has spent years in the shadows of unemployment. Though his marriage remains steady and loving, a heavy cloud of disappointment hangs over him as he wrestles with the feeling that he has failed his family. On the morning he is heading to a routine interview with a former business partner and friend, Javier Gándara, the mood at the edge of his life feels almost brittle. The encounter with Gándara leaves him with a blunt sense of rejection—no positions are available, and Roberto trudges away with a sting of humiliation that compounds his sense of inadequacy.

The day takes a sudden turn when, recalling Luisa’s desire to revisit the hotel where they spent their honeymoon, Roberto drives there with a stubborn impulse to reconnect with a memory of happiness. Instead of a romantic escape, he discovers that the hotel site has transformed into a museum, now the center of a major archeological dig and a media magnet. While wandering the bustling site during a high-profile press event, Roberto panics at the sight of a security guard named Claudio and plunges from a great height, his fate sealed by a catastrophic accident.

From the moment of impact, Roberto’s life becomes a spectacle that spirals beyond the medical emergency. He learns that his skull is impaled on a spike, a wound that freezes movement and invites an overwhelming media cyclone. Claudio steps away to fetch help, and the town’s leadership—Mayor Alcalde and museum director Mercedes—struggles to manage the mounting chaos and shield their careers from the ever-advancing storm of headlines. Reporters descend with a feverish hunger for a story, and rumors quickly paint Roberto’s fall as anything but an accident.

Luisa, meanwhile, clamps down on every possibility for a straightforward, private recovery. An emergency medical technician refuses to move Roberto, fearing further harm, and the stalemate forces them to seek higher authorities. A medical doctor, Dr. Velasco, steps into the impossible dilemma, and both Mercedes and Alcalde weigh the consequences of action versus inaction as the clock ticks. In a bid to secure the family’s financial future, Roberto’s mind pivots toward monetizing the catastrophe. He hires an agent, Johnny, and together they dream of product placements and exclusive interviews that could flood their lives with money.

Luisa’s concerns grow as the plan unfolds. The allure of a lucrative partnership with media magnate Álvaro Aguirre becomes a grudging beacon of possibility, but Aguirre insists on a dramatic return—Roberto must remain at the site to provide material with real impact. A posthumous interview, he suggests, could fetch millions, but the guarantee to invest such a windfall is a nonstarter for those footing the bill. The tension between family loyalty and the cold logic of media exploitation anchors the escalating predicament.

With the weight of money pressuring the situation, Luisa reluctantly allows Johnny to negotiate, even as she fears where the story will lead. Roberto’s longing to secure his family’s welfare collides with the harsh realities of consequence and accountability. He asks his children to visit, clinging to a fragile hope that life can still be meaningful in the midst of chaos. The struggle intensifies as Mercedes proposes a drastic measure—to physically free the spike and end the nightmare—but the decision to act is fleeting, and the group decides to wait for Velasco’s judgment.

Before surgery, Johnny returns with news of a lucrative contract, prompting Luisa to sever ties with him and to conceal the true state of the negotiations from Roberto. Yet Roberto remains unaware of the true dynamics at play. He speaks candidly to Pilar Álvarez, a local television reporter whom Luisa has chosen, and his heartfelt words become a tangible asset when the tape is passed to Luisa, who recognizes its potential value as a tool to secure a better future for her family, if only she can control the narrative.

The moment of truth arrives as Roberto is finally lifted from the spike, only to slip into delirium and bleed as the wound takes its brutal toll. Claudio offers quiet consolation to Luisa as Velasco reappears with a grim prognosis and the realization that Roberto has died during surgery. A surge of public emotion swells at the museum as the crowd absorbs the news, and the mood shifts from shock to collective mourning. Aguirre makes a final appearance, arriving to offer a lucrative payoff for the tape, a temptation Luisa greets with quiet resolve as she refuses to be bought.

In the end, the film closes on a landscape of financial hunger, media spectacle, and the fragile ties that bind a family in crisis. The tragedy is not just Roberto’s fall from the spike, but the way in which a desperate pursuit of money reshapes every relationship around him, congealing into a powerful commentary on fame, responsibility, and the costs of turning life into a headline.