By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 15, 2024)

The protracted opening scene of Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge’s drama (set at a wake) is so drenched in sorrow and raw emotion that it becomes something akin to grief porn. But just as I was beginning to wonder if this was going to be some kind of endurance test, one insular young woman breaks away from the proceedings to catch some air. Her name is Adela, and the recently departed was Elena, her closest friend since childhood. Adela is heading for her car when she espies a bus that seems to have appeared from nowhere. Intrigued, she boards it.

From this point onward, the narrative shifts from temporal to metaphysical concerns-as this is no ordinary bus (thank you driver for getting me here). Abracadabra …Adela has been transported to a weekend summer idyll with Elena and a mutual friend at a beach cottage. Whether this is a sense memory or a wishful conjuring on Adela’s part is not clear (shades of Tarkovsky’s Solaris). What begins as a sobering meditation on grief and loss becomes an uplifting fable about friendship, love, and savoring every morsel of joy that comes your way.