Since I’ve been getting negative comments of late for reviewing allegedly grotesque, harmful content, it doesn’t seem like adding more wood to that fire will hurt me much. I respect my fellow Christians who have strict viewership requirements on what they like to expose themselves to and abide by lesser restrictions myself. Everyone must know what their limits are, and shows like South Park do not personally push me away from my convictions. That said, I think documentaries like this do a good job showing the humane side of folks who most people assume are rude, irreverent louts. More to the point, they can show deeply faithful values like sacrifice and creativity playing out in unexpected places.
Content Guide
Violence/Scary Images: No violence or gore is depicted.
Language/Crude Humor: Severe crass language and swearing throughout the film, including f***, s***, and more.
Drug/Alcohol References: People casually drink alcohol throughout the film.
Sexual Content: Crass language but nothing sexual is depicted.
Spiritual Content: Limited to none.
Other Negative Content: Some potentially objectionable content to sensitive viewers.
Positive Content: Themes of sacrifice, creativity, kindness, and community.
Review
I must admit that I hold the collective works of Trey Parker and Matt Stone in high regard. Despite its deep and grotesque irreverence toward my faith, South Park is a guilty pleasure that I return to regularly. It’s hard to feel deeply offended by a show that tells you it exists to offend everyone equally, especially knowing it treats atheists equally as it treats Catholics, Mormons, Scientologists, and Christian rock bands.
Anyone who has followed the show since the early 2000s knows that Parker and Stone have many curious fixations, among them a fascination with one of Colorado’s most famous restaurants—the famous family fun center Casa Bonita outside of Denver. In a famous 2003 episode, series lead Cartman wants to attend a birthday party at Casa Bonita but has to kidnap one of the guests so he can free a spot on the guest list, resulting in insane and disturbing hijinks.
The real-life Casa Bonita is a staple of life for the people of Lakewood, Colorado. The monstrously large gimmick restaurant and family fun center is a themed Mexican restaurant with indoor pools, costumes, an arcade, and beautiful interior decorations. It was one of the most popular local restaurants, even if people generally preferred the atmosphere to the mediocre food. Unfortunately, it became one of many victims of the COVID-19 pandemic and filed for bankruptcy. Much to many people’s surprise, Parker and Stone offered to buy the restaurant and reopened it in June 2023, showing their pride as Colorado natives by using their accumulated wealth and success to save a beloved landmark.
¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! is a new film about the process of purchasing the restaurant and restoring it over two years, that shows Parker and Stone’s creative process for how they helped shape the new restaurant into something that was both authentic and improved. The movie comes from their frequent collaborator Arthur Bradford, who last worked with the pair on the excellent 2011 documentary 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park—about how the pair’s remarkable creative process allows them to produce a new episode of their show in less than a week.
The film’s title is a reference to the 1963 Elvis Presley comedy Fun in Acapulco, which the two watched during the exploratory phase of the restaurant. It provided an incredible muse for them for how they wanted the restaurant to feel, what they jokingly describe as a white dude’s awkward version of authentic Mexican culture, with pirates and guys running around in gorilla suits for no discernible reason.
The process of actually fixing the restaurant’s issues seemed like it might be straightforward, but it quickly dawns on the pair that the project is going to balloon out of control. Construction crews tear the place apart only to realize the fifty-year-old building is rotting due to deferred maintenance. What should be a $6 million project quickly balloons into an expensive nightmare. The pair are quickly forced to split their time between working on South Park in Los Angeles and working on the restaurant in Denver, risking financial ruination if the project falls apart.
Much like Six Days To Air, the film is a testament to the challenges of creativity and to the agony that comes with working in creative spaces under tight deadlines and financial realities. A restaurant is different than a television show, but it requires intense attention to detail and focus. Parker and Stone worked tirelessly to understand the tone of the original restaurant so that they could capture it.
By the end though, it expands upon that premise and ends up also being a beautiful reflection on the purpose of creativity and how others perceive it. Parker seems to get a bit lost in the process toward the end, but the epiphany that comes with remembering that Casa Bonita is a children’s restaurant gives him a needed sense of clarity for how this imperfect effort and stress were worth it in the end. The people of Colorado love Casa Bonita, and so does Parker. The original couldn’t be saved, but the love of the thing brought it back bigger and better than ever. It stops just being something that lives in Parker’s head and becomes something that no longer belongs to him, and that’s worth it because of all the thousands of children’s smiles it produces.
For a documentary about the foul-mouthed creators of South Park, it ends up being a surprisingly sentimental, touching, and self-reflective work of filmmaking.
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