A One Mann’s Movies review of “Romeria” (From the 2025 London Film Festival). (2025, 2*, ’15’).
I’m afraid my run of good films (imho) at the LFF had to come off the rails sometime and I’m afraid it did with “Romeria”. I’m afraid Carla Simón’s latest might have been technically well-made, but I found the plotting to be tortuous and unengaging.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
With her mother’s diary in hand, Marina’s search for official documents for university leads her to her biological family on the Atlantic coast. What starts as an administrative quest reveals long-buried family secrets.
Certification:
UK: NR; US: NR. (The film has not yet been rated by the BBFC but I would expect it to be a firm ’15’ for language, drug-taking and sexual content including full nudity.)
Talent:
Starring: Tristán Ulloa, Llúcia Garcia, Mitch Martín, Celine Tyll, León Romagosa, Hans Romagosa, Marina Troncoso, José Ángel Egido, Miryam Gallego, Sara Casasnovas.
Directed by: Carla Simón.
Written by: Carla Simón.
Running Time: 1h 54m.
Summary:
Positives:
- It’s a beautifully shot film with lovely shots of the sea and islands around Vigo, Spain.
- Tristán Ulloa makes for an extremely attractive leading lady, with great screen presence.
Negatives:
- The plot of uncovering the past moved at such a glacial pace that I really didn’t care.
- Sexual scenes smelled more of incest than the intended flashback.
Full Review of “Romeria”:
Uncovering Marina’s past.
The film is structured as a journey into her past for Marina Piñera who is an orphan having lost her parents at a very young age and having been brought up in Barcelona by a foster mother. She returns to her parent’s original home, the port of Vigo in Spain, but finds that her father never recognised her birth on her certificates. This is a problem for her university application. This leads her on a quest for the truth via her cranky grandparents (Marina Troncoso and José Ángel Egido) and her assorted aunts and uncles.
She also engages with her numerous drink- and drug-taking cousins, even though Marina herself is squeaky-clean in terms of such vices. She is particularly drawn to the handsome Susu (Mitch Martín) although claiming not to be in the market for a boyfriend.
Sadly, none of this journey of discovery had me gripped in the slightest. The pace of the story I found to be glacial, as the somewhat predictable past of her parents was ever-so-slowly unwound.
Llúcia Garcia is a screen siren.
Taking my mind off the story’s tedium, to a degree, was Llúcia Garcia playing Marina who is a young actress with astonishing screen presence. (She reminded me at times of the magnetic presence of BAFTA Rising Star Mia McKenna-Bruce (“How To Have Sex“). One to watch for the future.
Uncomfortable sex scenes.
At one point, in a branch into magical realism, Marina manages to go back in time and meet her bohemian parents at the time before she was born. Both her mother and father are played by Llúcia Garcia and Mitch Martín: the aunts and uncles repeatedly state how much Marina “looks like her mother”. As the father (Fon), Mitch is given a different hair colour such that I thought he was actually a different actor. But the mother (unnamed as far as I remember, but let’s call her “Marie” for the purpose of this write-up) merely has a slightly different hairstyle from Marina.
My problem was that this portion of the film is sexually explicit, with both Fon and ‘Marie’ running around completely naked and having sex on the beach (not the cocktail variety). The fact that ‘Marie’ looks so much like Marina (why was she not given vivid blue dyed hair?) gave me the immediate impression that MARINA and her father are engaging in incestuous practices.
As mentioned many times before, I am far from being a prude for sex on screen, but I found these scenes most uncomfortable.
Summary Thoughts:
I overheard one other critic commenting that they enjoyed this film. Maybe you will too. But I’m afraid it just didn’t work for me and I found myself bored and disinterested with it.
Tickets for the London Film Festival showings on 9th and 10th October are currently sold out, but here is the booking web site to check for returns or other showings.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB0sKQs_EJE.
Subscribe
Don’t forget, you can subscribe to One Mann’s Movies to receive future reviews by email right here. No salesman will call!
