Las chicas están bien

A group of theatre formed mainly by young women go to the country in order to rehearse for a theatre play in the open space.

The astounding cinematography matches well with the realistic dialogues in a Spanish French-like picture which captures the inner feelings of a generation of young women.

The characters speak about art, acting, and LIFE.

Fresh and emotional, documentary-like camera planning, cinema verité style, fine performances.

This film is an essay. Directed by Itsaso Arana. It is about love, death, faith and friendship.

Influences of Godard, Rohmer and Resnais.

New Spanish Cinema.

Film about five actresses who go to a village in rural and "vaciada" Spain. It is a film about their stories, about how it has brought them to that point in their lives and how they find themselves at that precise moment; it is a good portrait of the fears of that age when you are not adult enough but not young enough either. They tell us about their fears, their past, present and future relationships, in short, about how they are and how they feel.

The strong point is its minimalism and its direction that makes us the sixth participant in this rural retreat, but in the rest... it is very fair, the premise is scarce, it does not go deep into any of the girls so it is very difficult to feel identified with any of them; the stories are quite generic and in some moments it lacks rhythm.

I went to see this film when it premiered at Cine Doré in Madrid and I must say I wasn't very enthusiastic about it. I found it frankly boring and not that original.

The main theme of the film is female bonding and it uses an age-old artifice which is the "play within the play". Five women spend seven days in a villa in the Spanish countryside talking about their lives, their loves, their past and their personal and emotional scars. Now is that such a new subject for a film made in 2023? As to the acting I found it average and not extraordinary. I was expecting more from Barbara Lenny who plays one of the chicas but I was badly disappointed. Would I recommend this film? Definitely not.