Actress Emilia Vera (Victoria Luengo) hugs her mother Charo (Núria Prims), a former actress, leaving the car. She’s probably making a mistake by accepting a role in a film by Esteban Martinez (Javier Bardem) about the Western Sahara. Esteban is a talented, Academy Award winning director who’s also Emilia’s estranged father and Spain’s enfant terrible. During the shoot, Esteban is doing multiple things, like recording audio commentary for his film with Charo. He’s also trying to be a good dad to Emilia, which the latter speaks out against. He claims to have slowed down over the years but all it takes is one bad day. That bad day comes, forcing him to make staff changes and make sure that Emilia comes out of this production alive.
Director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s newest film The Beloved, on a formal basis, plays around with colour and grain. Most of it is in regular film, but there are some scenes in crisp black and white. At first there isn’t any rhyme or reason to the occasional and sudden changes in the format. One of the black and white scenes has Esteban calling Emilia a narcissist, which feels like projection. Those moments seem like heightened versions of their arguments that are happening in their day to day. Those moments feel small, letting the film breathe for when the big arguments between them do take place. One such argument, actually, is during the casting offer scene during the beginning, showing their amphibian transformations.
- Rated: 12, 15
- Genre: Drama, Film About Film
- Release Date: 9/13/2026
- Directed by: Rodrigo Sorogoyen
- Starring: Javier Bardem, Victoria Luengo
- Produced by: Eduardo Villanueva, Nacho Lavilla
- Written by: Isabel Peña, Rodrigo Sorogoyen
- Studio: Caballo Films, Le Pacte, Movistar+
