A One Mann’s Movies review of “Balearic” (From the 2025 London Film Festival). (2025, 1.5*, ’15’).
I said with my review of “100 Nights of Hero” that that was my last LFF film that I’d seen on the big screen. But I also have access to a video library of a subset of the films and “Balearic” was my first post-LFF viewing from there. It’s a bizarrely disjointed and a quite frustrating film to watch: it bears some similarity to the brilliant “Sirât” in that the film you think you are there to watch goes off in a completely different direction. But here, not in a good way.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Four teens trespass into a remote villa and swim in the pool there. But vicious dogs attack one of the girls and surround the pool. Will the party at a nearby villa, celebrating St John’s Eve, hear their desperate screams?
Certification:
UK: NR; US: NR. (At the time of writing the film had not received a certificate from the BBFC: I would have thought that the film would receive a 15 certificate for scenes of violence.)
Talent:
Starring: Héctor Arnau, Sofía Asencio, Marta Bassols, Zorion Eguileor, Paula Gala, Lara Gallo, Julián Génisson, Pilar Guerra, Elias Hwidar, Lorena Iglesias. María Llopis, Federico Marin, Manolo Marín, Luka Peros, Moisés Richart, Christina Rosenvinge, Ada Tormo.
Directed by: Ion De Sosa.
Written by: Ion De Sosa, Chema García Ibarra, Julián Génisson, Juan González & Lorena Iglesias.
Running Time: 1h 14m.
Summary:
Positives:
- An interesting initial premise.
- Some of the more mystical elements of the later story are intriguing.
Negatives:
- The film throws away the initial premise for arthouse funk.
- Most of the dialogue is utter twaddle.
- An unsatisfying ending.
Full Review of “Balearic”:
A Mallorcan variation of “The Shallows”.
The film starts with some promise. We get an initial introduction to our four teenagers, played by Lara Gallo, Elias Hwidar, Ada Tormo, and Paula Gala. (Apart from Lucia (Lara Gallo) the rest are unnamed.) The friends are about to start their last summer before heading in different directions for college, with the lovers, Lucia and the boy (Elias Hwider), twitchy about whether they can maintain their relationship long-distance.
They set off for a trek and come across a new-build villa, seemingly deserted. Trespassing, they end up in the pool, but Lucia is suddenly viciously attacked by 3 Dobermans and the four terrified teens are stuck in the middle of the pool, miles from any other habitation, surrounded by the snarling animals. “Ooh” I thought “It’s an interesting variant on the likes of “The Shallows” or “Fall“: teens stuck desperately close to safety but unable to get there.
But then, 20 minutes in, Ion De Sosa (or what seems to be a committee of writers) throw all that promise out of the window!
A different villa.
We cut to a completely different villa, some miles away. The inference is made (through the line “that villa wasn’t there before”) that we can see the kid’s villa in the distance.
Ana (Lorena Iglesias) is receiving emotional treatment from ‘self-improvement consultant’ Maria (Sofía Asencio) while her sister (Spanish-singer Christina Rosenvinge) looks on.
The family are celebrating St. John’s Eve, which is apparently a big holiday event in Spain where a lot of paella is cooked and eaten. At the same time, the wheelchair-bound patriarch of the family, Juan (Zorion Eguileor), is having a major birthday. Artist (Marta Bassols) has carved an ice sculpture of Juan for the event, which is slowly dripping onto the decking in the afternoon heat. It is more quickly disappearing though, in what seems to be a most irreverent manner, as the guests chip off fingers to add to their drinks.
While all this is happening, a forest fire is burning nearby, with a helicopter scooping up their pool water to fight the fire. The partying guests are being showered with ash…. which implies to me that they are downwind of the fire (so WTAF are they doing there)?
Various scenes are interspersed with random, eerie distorted facial images of the guests talking. Just… well… because.
Talking arthouse bollocks.
If you are thinking that my description above makes the film sound confusing and disjointed then you are right. It is a hotch-potch of mostly unnamed, poorly defined characters interacting in ways that you don’t fully understand. For example, Juan trusts Maria with a ‘wish’ on a piece of paper which he tells her not to read but burn in the celebration file later (this is presumably the same celebration we see in the opening section of “No Time To Die“). But instead, she reads it on the toilet (we don’t see what it is) and flushes it. What a bitch! Why?
All the while, the characters are coming out with the sort of bollocks dialogue that never actually exists in any real-life social setting outside of an arthouse movie. There is a lot of focus on life and death and the approaching fire. None of it I found remotely engaging.
Yes, but what about the teens in the pool?
Throughout all of this time, you are wondering what is going on with the teens and the dogs. I pondered about whether our current scenes are actually set in the future and these adults are the grown up versions of the pool kids. (But no, not the case.)
The film links the disparate events through some mysticism. A bracelet that one of the teens lost jumping from a first floor balcony into the pool (irresponsible!) is found in the other villa pool. All of the ‘villa 2’ guests decide to take a dip in the pool but just stand around the edge, unable to get in. When one man is pushed in, he emerges shell-shocked, panicked and emotional. Perhaps the best trick of all is when the paella cook burns the pan and engraved in the bottom are the screaming faces of the four pool kids. That’s quite neat.
The mystical aspects in the story had something about them that appealed, but not enough to counter the arthouse car-crash that was in progress around them.
Do the two strands of the story ever come back together? Yes, they do – in the final 30 seconds of the film, but not in a satisfactory way.
Summary Thoughts:
This was one of the films at the LFF that I’d earmarked that I’d wanted to see, based on the interesting initial premise. But it turned out to be an unsatisfying slog to get through (and it is only 74 minutes long!) Ultimately, I felt cheated… I’d been hooked by the film’s initial premise and then sold a pup.
I should have done my research better: the director’s previous film was the 49 minute long “Mamántula” about a giant tarantula disguised as a desirable hunk. I might have known that this would be a bit odd!
I can’t see that the film has any broader theatrical release planned in the UK and to be honest, I’m not surprised. So if you want to check this one out you may need to search for it on streaming services next year.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39TZTFaxuhU.
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