Evolving the played-out cinematic scenario of a bank robbery into a well-thought-out and provocative message on living to serve versus living to live, Argentine writer and director Rodrigo Moreno scored a huge win with both critics and audiences alike with his newest film, The Delinquents. Categorized as a heist comedy-drama, this film sees a character named Moran (played by Daniel Elias) choose to steal from the bank he’s employed at rather than work there the majority of life.

In the process, he corrals a coworker by the name of Roman (brought to life by Esteban Bigliardi) who holds the cache of money until his prison sentence is completed. To coincide with the showing of this film at the 61st New York Film Festival, Moreno himself sat down with MovieWeb recently to decipher not only some of the film’s timeless settings, but also why this struggle between the comfort of man and the corporate machine is so important to him.

Implementing Aesthetic Decor
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“The film is like a fable and the narrative is one that a fable has,” began Moreno, referring to the weirdly timeless, vague nature of the setting. “In order to create a fable, I have to take it away from realism. [Also], the movie is being created while I’m actually shooting it, so there’s an aesthetic matter. It’s my preference for shooting in some spaces. If I had to film a car in 2023, I would find a more interesting car in 2003. I prefer to shoot an old calculator rather than an Apple computer.” Related: 15 Heist Movies That Are Highly Rewatchable

Both of the male leads quickly end up risking everything about their livelihoods in order to be freed from the catatonic stagnation that the bank initially placed on them. As much as The Delinquents is quite serious about conveying this dilemma about morality, there is also a much-needed balance between this and a childlike, whimsical, and quirky humor that derives from the aforementioned characters starting to actually feel alive again. With a grin, the director said that he may be projecting his own personality through these emotional weights and balances:

I do not think of things without humor. On one hand, there is an existential matter, but if I was using a solemn tone all the time, it would be so heavy. So I think humor works to create a distance and also to go through the narratives and the scenes.

A Fable About the Struggles for a Better Life
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In a movie such as The Delinquents, where one of the biggest draws is the interconnected stories of Moran and Roman and their quest to force a better life for themselves, there are many opposing pieces as well that seamlessly fit into the overall narrative.

“The duality is part of the architecture of the film,” said Moreno. “There are a lot of dualities. The bank and the bag of money, the relationship of the two characters with Norma. The place they go — the hills — they meet the same people there. The rhythm is different, the speed is different, the organization is different, but there are many mirrors, and I think to look at these two characters, many different types [of mirrors] were needed.”

Related: The Delinquents Review: A Bank Heist Movie Where Happiness Is Taken Back

Hitting upon his use of anagrams with the characters’ names (examples of this include the main characters as well as Morna and Norma), the director of The Delinquents expanded on what his specific use of wordplay means within the context of the movie’s world, and how it splits that same cinematic sphere into separate pieces.

“All the characters who share letters besides Moran and Roman – they belong to another dreamy or surreal world. We can call that side B – or A. It depends on where you look at it. The hills, the film they’re shooting, Norma with those two characters — there’s something idyllic in the film and all the characters that share letters belong to that part of the film. It’s like they belong to a more poetic world, one which is not so real.”

Besides the overarching symbolism of this name-based connection, the anagrams can stand as just surface level humor as well.

Boiling the Bank Heist Down to Basics

It is easy to see that Moran is the braver character of the two, and Roman can be seen as the more passive one who just follows orders in whichever way he is told. Surprisingly, there is an underlying similarity between the both of them during this whole process. Diving into this, Moreno opened up about the thieves’ situation:

“Roman makes the sacrifice in the film because, he has the time bomb right? He has money, and he’s thoroughly investigated. Until Moran comes out of the jail, it’s a nightmare for him too. He’s beaten and has bruises all over his face. On the other hand, he finds a way to save himself. He’s reading a poem all these years in prison, and it’s an allegory of freedom. So there is that paradox in the film about those two characters.”

Above all else, The Delinquents is so special because the premise of two people robbing a bank ends up evolving into something much deeper throughout the film. Explaining why this struggle between people and power resonated with him so much, Moreno said: “I believe all movies are autobiographical. You select a theme – this is usually some obsession which affects your life, in professional and personal ways.” He continued:

This idea of promoting a different type of life, that the relationship with work is different, that you should disobey the rules – all of these have to do a lot with me. Even the film itself is a way of disobeying.

“I find nowadays that the world is so predictable,” continued Moreno. “We don’t wonder, we don’t ask ourselves why. We’re watching our cellphones and under surveillance. No one cares about that. There are rules that the powers create, the companies create. Telling the story about a rebellion, not even a rebellion — just someone wondering and asking — the dialogue makes sense in present times.”

The Delinquents will have a limited theatrical release starting on October 18th, 2023.