I've been resident in Spain for several years now and have visited both Nerja and Frigiliana so this new three-part Netflix thriller set in and around both these adjacent pretty towns was of particular interest to me. Taking its title from Confucius's cryptic saying, the plot of this Spanish-language production revolves around the disappearance of two young girls on what at first seems to be a typical night out at the local carnival. But when one of them is soon discovered dead, her body found in a bag at sea, evidence of her rape and murder changes the nature of the investigation, while still begging the question as to where the other teenager is.
Two years pass and on the second anniversary of the murder and disappearance an updated television investigation sparks new interest and hopefully new leads in the case. Step forward the main protagonist of the programme, the missing girl's devoted grandmother, a piano teacher who doted on the girl. She it is who turns into a Spanish Miss Marple, especially when she discovers that a key witness is actually one of her own students, although the lesson she teaches him is of a more deadly nature and very un-Marple like.
Even more determined now to get to the bottom of things, she hooks up with the revengeful father of the girl who was killed, who turns out to be a ruthless crime boss. With many a twist and turn ahead of them, one in particular meting out summary justice to an especially inane daytime TV host (yay!), both separately and together, the pair gradually unravel the mystery of what happened that fateful night and finally learn what happened to granny's granddaughter Veronica, before arriving at a cliff-hangjng, indeed cliff-busting conclusion.
As stated earlier, I enjoyed the depiction of the local settings as well as the fact that the story was condensed into three rather than the usual six, eight or ten to which these stories often run.
The story however I found to be somewhat contrived and clichéd, borrowing too much from too many previous major and TV movies, not to mention TV series dealing with similar subjects. Whilst I appreciated the occasional touches of black humour, for me there were too many identifiable moving parts and coincidental plot points for the programme to really cohere.
Tapping into the recent trend of popular dramas ("Mobland", "The Thursday Murder Club") featuring older actors in major roles this rather conventionally shot and acted production nevertheless made for pleasant if hardly compelling viewing.
