‘Mesa de Regalos’ Offers Unbreakable Bonds of Family, Friendship

The Mexican box-office hit comedy, Mesa de Regalos (The Gift Table) follows two childhood best friends, Nicolás Miranda (José Eduardo Derbez) and Antonia Sánchez (Cassandra Sánchez Navarro), who plan a fake engagement to cash in on their wedding gifts and use the money to finance their own dreams.

However, they both agree that on the actual wedding day, Sánchez will leave Miranda at the altar and the scandal will allow both of them to keep their share of the gifts. 

By convincing their friends and family of their pretend relationship, Sánchez will be able to pursue her desire to study abroad in Spain, while Miranda will have the opportunity to develop his innovative but odd dating app for dogs.

The film, directed by Noé Santillán-López, was not only hilarious but also focused on central themes tied to love, family and friendship. 

There was undeniable chemistry between Derbez and Navarro. Their scenes together displayed an unbreakable bond, whether it was through the laughs or tears they shared on-screen. Their story embraced a friends-to-lovers trope, allowing the audience to watch their fake relationship blossom into a real one. 

The film also featured many relatable family moments, ranging from grieving the loss of a loved one to sharing anxieties about not meeting expectations. It portrays the deep type of bond that only exists between family members and it was heartwarming to watch the Sánchez family as a normal family with real problems that they overcame together.

Mesa de Regalos – the opening film at the recent San Diego Latino Film Festival – is the first live-action film produced by Disney entirely filmed in Mexico, according to an interview by The Indiependent.

To longtime festival attendee Isabelle Schechter, starting this year off with a comedy was a great way to ease people into the event. For the past decade, it has held a special place in her heart in bringing people in her community together and celebrating her culture. 

“Growing up, I never saw people that look like me in film, in television, in books, anywhere. So to see an entire festival of people who look like me, who speak my language, who have my culture, it makes me feel like I’m home,” Schechter said. 

As a host of the House of Puerto Rico in Balboa Park, her organization has played a crucial role in giving  Puerto Ricans in San Diego a local connection. She says a film like “Mesa de Regalos” also gives non-Latino viewers a chance to see her community as just “regular people enjoying life.” The festival, by opening with a comedy, invites them to join in on the laughter. 

After watching the movie for the first time, Schechter says the friendship between the two main characters was what touched her the most. She walked away with a beautiful message from the film – that the person you love is someone who is always going to be there for you, through the good times and the bad.

“They had such a deep and beautiful, all-encompassing friendship and it’s so wonderful to know that you can have someone that is there for you, somebody that’s your person,” Schechter said. “So I really thought that this was a great way to start, knowing that these two people have their person, and then being at an event where all the people are your people, they’re all collectively your person. I thought that was a great way to start out.”

Since its release on Jan. 17, Mesa de Regalos has a box office gross of over $6.5 million, with plans for it to stream on the Disney+ platform across Latin America. It is one of Mexico’s highest-grossing films of the year.