As "Recurrence" (2022 release from Argentina; 115 min.; original title: "Pipa") opens, a woman is found dead. We then go to "A Few Hours Earlier", and we get to know a rich family in a remote rural area of Argentina. There is a big party at the family mansion, and one of the staff people, Samanta, is the woman found dead some hours later... What exactly happened here? At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie.
Couple of comments: this is the latest from Argentinean writer-director Alejandro Montiel ("Intuition"). Here he intends to bring a crime thriller. It's not at all clear for quite a while that the key character is a woman named Manuela, apparently an erstwhile cop. I kept waiting for things to pick up, and kept waiting, and waiting... I could not get into it whatsoever and gave up an hour into the movie, sorry. It wasn't until afterward, when I read up on this movie, that I realized that "Recurrence" is a sequel of sorts to a prior movie (20178s "Perdida", or "Loss") starring that same character Manuela (and played by the same actress, Luisana Lopilato). Even though "Recurrence" is supposed to be a stand-alone film, it's pretty clear to me that having seen "Perdida" would've answered a lot of questions I had about the lead character, and would also have given me a much better context within which to appreciate "Recurrence".
"Recurrence" recently premiered on Netflix, where it was "suggested" to me based on my viewing habits. Typically I trust these suggestions quite a bit, but in this instance, I wish I was aware that "Recurrence" comes after "Loss" and "Loss" (also on Netflix) should've been recommended to me before "Recurrence". Viewer beware!
