Gripped by the after hours chills of Cross the Line (2020-also reviewed), I started to hope that after starting at VIVA: The 28th Manchester Spanish & Latin American Film Festival, that GRIMMFEST would end my run of movies from Spain on a high note, which led to me getting ready to witness, the second,and final Spain Horror from GRIMMFEST.
Note: Review contains some plot details.
View on the film:
Detailing in a discussion after the screening/ stream that filming began shortly after Lockdown had lifted in Spain, with a lot of time spent planning on how the movie would be shot, in order to keep the production time lean, director Alfonso Cortes-Cavanillas explores Paloma's ego with a claustrophobic, ultra-stylized atmosphere, via long, winding hand-held shots in washed out colours bouncing off the walls of the small home where Paloma lives with her mum.
Featuring a wonderfully chilling twist which turns the song Girls Just Want To Have Fun into a creepy ironic note as Paloma's doppelganger struck a chord, Cortes-Cavanillas threads the unsettling intimate character study mood with brilliantly composed two-shots and push-ins on Paloma attempting to find support on the internet, ending in online horror streaming down into Paloma's offline life,and a haunting poetic final shot, which lights the sky up with doppelganger.
Finding the self-reflection of her ego in the mirror, to push her further into the corner of the bedroom, Maria Pedraza gives a superb, subtle performance as Paloma, who when speaking to a online counselor, Pedraza has Paloma put on a brave face, which brakes when she closes the laptop, and Pedraza captures the weight of psychological torment this supernatural Horror has, with the mental anguish from the breakdown she recently suffered,adding to the extreme pressure Paloma feels she is under to process the deep pain that she is experiencing.
Taking place during Lockdown, the debut feature film screenplay by Jorge Navarro de Lemus thoughtfully has Paloma's mum and friends take a empathetic stance, where rather then distancing themselves from the unfolding horror, they compassionately stay by Paloma's side, offering support even as the doppelganger starts to enter into their lives.
Discovering a profile of a woman who looks just like her on a dating website, Lemus takes a glorious, nerve-shredding slow-burn manner, via Paloma's attempts to get the account removed hitting a brick wall, which results in the foundation of Paloma's fragile mind being shaken, with the doppelganger creeping into Paloma's life gradually, pushing Paloma to question, if the small, unexplained alterations she is suddenly surrounded by are real or imaginary, as the doppelganger reveals, that girls just want to have fun.
