Lo que le pasó a Santiago (; "What Happened to Santiago") is a 1989 Puerto Rican comedy film written and directed by Jacobo Morales. The film tells the story of a recently retired widower who meets a mysterious young lady who disrupts his daily routines. Lo que le pasó a Santiago was the first and only Puerto Rican production to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2011 AMPAS revised its rules to make films from U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico ineligible for the Foreign Language Film award.
Plot
Santiago, a widowed man visits his wife at the cemetery. Near the location of the filming of a movie, Santiago meets a mysterious woman. She is very pleasant, and talks to him. They exchange gifts, but then upon saying their good-byes, she doesn't tell him her name and he wonders if he'll ever see her again. They bump into each other again and the woman continues to be pleasant and tells him her name is Angelina. Angelina informs him that she has been watching him and saw when he mailed a letter to someone.
Santiago, the widowed man and his daughter often argue, mainly because his daughter is going through a divorce and her father, Santiago prefers she not divorce. Later as the daughter and her husband argue over divorce matters in the presence of their young son, Santiago engages the boy in conversation about snow: that the only time he saw snow was when it was bought to Puerto Rico by plane. Santiago, looks for employment but is interviewed by someone who is obviously not interested in hiring him because of his age.
The third time Santiago and Angelina meet, they listen to traditional guitar music and dance. Following that, they go to a park and row a boat through a waterway. Angelina is always smiling and happy.
Then Santiago's daughter continues to be argumentative. At the airport, she and her father Santiago are talking about her move to New York City for 3 months and that she was planning to leave her son with her husband, Gerard, but her husband has not shown up at the airport. Frustrated, she leaves her son with her father telling the boy to behave and obey his (father). As Santiago is leaving with his sad grandson, the boy's father shows up to take him.
One day while sitting at home, Santiago unexpectedly receives a call on his landline from Angelina. Santiago had never given her his phone number and she explains that she had to call every person in the phone book with his name to find him. They make plans to meet in San Juan. Eddie, Santiago's son, is depressed and tells his father that he has given away his guitar because of his depression. In a pep talk, Santiago tells his son they have to make it, and that they'll travel together because traveling will be therapeutic. Then when Eddie notices the scenic beach painting on his father's wall, the gift from Angelina, and asks him about it, Santiago tells his son that he's very happy because he has met Angelina. However, worried about a lack of information about Angelina, Santiago has secretly hired an investigator to help him learn more about her.
Early the next morning, Santiago and Angelina are at her home, a big, beautiful, Spanish-style home and, upon entering, Santiago finds the home is immaculate, with large majestic windows, and a functioning old phonograph. As the phonograph music plays, Santiago peruses the black-and-white photos around her home. She prepares and they have breakfast while they share more about themselves. She tells him her grandfather fought for Spain in the Spanish-American war, and built the home. In turn, he tells her no one in his family was famous, except maybe his great-aunt who was a bootlegger during prohibition; in summary that he's widowed, and retired after having worked as an accountant for forty years, that he has three children, and is now here with her. They walk through the fields enjoying the day until they get caught in a rainstorm. They change into bathrobes and proceed to her bedroom and she offers him a massage with rubbing alcohol, preferably on the bed. They remove their bathrobes and later, as they lay together, she tells him that he should keep his eyes closed because, were he to open them, he would know that she's a ghost.