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Review

Food and water play principal roles in this lush, hauntingly atmospheric drama. Set during an ominous, weeks-long torrential downpour in Mexico, Simón Bross's debut follows a family's struggle with eating disorders. Recent medical school graduate Matilde (Ximena Ayala), a devout Catholic, dismisses her degree in favor of joining a convent. Once there, she takes to starving herself in the hopes that fasting will strengthen her ability to cure the sick and needy — particularly her family members. Meanwhile, Matilde's Aunt Elena (Elena de Haro, in a challenging physical performance) has become dangerously obsessed with her daughter Linda's (Elisa Vicedo) slight weight problem and begins employing cruel and abusive methods in an effort to help the young girl slim down — all the while exercising compulsively and refusing to eat, herself. Elena's husband Gustavo (Marco Antonio Treviño), having grown tired of his wife's irrational behavior, begins an affair with a curvaceous young Peruvian woman who better understands the sensuous possibilities of food and sex — apart or combined. Employing dark tones, bold performances, religious iconography, surrealism, a passionate score, and mesmerizing sound effects, Bross's visually captivating character study examines how eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive behavior can dangerously cloud one's perception of reality. (Spanish with English subtitles)

 -- Robert O'Neill