‘The Loved One’ (★★★★✩), what we talk about when we talk about love, and other releases of the week

These are the premieres arriving on cinema screens this August 26:

By Philipp Engel

If The Realm and Antidisturbios, which for this writer remain the pinnacles of the duo formed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen and screenwriter Isabel Peña (even above As Bestas), relied on very specific themes tied to current Spanish affairs, with plots of corruption – one political, in Valencia, and the other police-related, including a parody of Commissioner Villarejo – here they bet on much more universal themes such as the distance between a father and daughter, and the love of cinema. Against what Denis Villeneuve defined as “a tiger,” Javier Bardem, it is hard to imagine another young actress capable of holding his gaze other than Victoria Luengo, who has established herself as a perceptive, relentless, and very emotional performer.

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As is known, the film tells the story of the attempted reunion between a fiery old-school filmmaker and his precarious actress daughter, during a shoot set in the years of the Spanish Sahara. There are two scenes, one introductory and another very climactic that, due to their long duration, intensity, or complexity, have captured all eyes indisputably. But beyond those two virtuosic scenes, the demonstrative spectacularity of the lead duo, or the beauty of the tribute to the seventh art and all the crafts of cinema – the most striking aspects of the film – The Beloved is loaded with signature flourishes, like that circular shot ending with the detail of Bardem’s hand furtively passing over Luengo’s back – a microgesture of love – or those phone calls, from balcony to balcony, showing in the simplest possible way the distance between these two beings who never fully visualize each other.

Sorogoyen also ventures into a meta-game with all possible formats, changing the frame dimensions, the image texture, or briefly jumping to black and white, which can be disconcerting on a first viewing but settles in subsequent ones, which are inevitable because Sorogoyen and Peña are masters in handling narrative tension, and that tension generates addiction. As soon as it ends, The Beloved demands to be watched again. A magnificent sentimental thriller full of small surprises.

By Jordi Batlle Caminal

We won’t deny it: a certain fear of disappointment took hold of us before seeing the film. A justified fear that could be called the “fourth installment syndrome” and which directly refers to the Toy Story saga. The first three films of the Pixar franchise were not only masterful but each one was better than the last, exactly the same case as with Tad. However, Toy Story 4 (and let alone the recent Toy Story 5) marked a notable creative decline. Reaching the peak is a danger. Tad the Lost Explorer and the Wonderful Lamp is no longer better than the third, but happily, it is by no means worse: it is, once again, a source of constant, intelligent, witty, brilliant fun, well conceived, written, and dialogued with talent and technically crafted with mastery.

The discovery of Aladdin’s magic lamp sets off a frantic macro-adventure with a great variety of settings, time travels, and several cinephile references. The great find of the previous Tad the Lost Explorer 3: The Emerald Tablet, the Egyptian mummy Ra Amon Ah (phonetically: Ramona), appears again, now integrated into the big family of adventurers (Tad, Sara, the parrot, the dog, and the other mummy, the Aztec), and even as a secondary character, she still has her stellar moments. Among the new additions, the small daughter of Tad stands out (we also discovered the hero had a child in the fourth Indiana installment, although older) and a robot who, besides the usual comedy, offers a pertinent commentary on the use of AI in contemporary culture, providing very interesting viewpoints. The most notable new character, however, is the genie who comes out of the lamp and grants three wishes, a marvel of gestural inventiveness and verbal wit that has nothing to do with Rex Ingram from The Thief of Baghdad nor Idris Elba from Three Thousand Years of Longing. You’ll see: it’s memorable.

By Salvador Llopart

When you think you have reconnected with the best Ridley Scott, the one from Alien and Blade Runner, you realize he once again lets himself be carried away by “beauty.” Especially when his new dystopia, in the style of Mad Max, capable of generating notable tension, clashes with Jacob Elordi, the survivor, always melancholic, always posing for Carhartt ads. Luckily, there is Josh Brolin. Thanks to him, the good moments, emotional moments of The Dog Star, which there are, do not get lost like tears in the rain.

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By P. Engel

When two friends meet, the earth erupts and the world is a mosaic of pale colors… In this delicate, unlocalized, and as funny as melancholic rom-com in the style of mumblecore, Charli XCX keeps pace with life while trapped in a calm and transient relationship, without emotional explosions. But she decides to flee when, upon landing in beautiful Warsaw, she reunites with her partner in crime (Lena Gora), a florist with her own sentimental problems.

By J. Batlle

This cathedral-sized nonsense from Chartres tries to subvert romantic comedy clichés under the excuse of talking about and having carefree sex in a New York of high erotic temperature (since it is the only night of the year when singles can make love; the rest of the year it is forbidden by law), but ends up succumbing to them. Except for the charismatic photogenic Monica Barbaro (the excellent Joan Baez of A Complete Unknown), everything else is lamentable.

By S. Llopart

This intriguing and at times hypnotic proposal – some will call it psychedelic or slow – faces three challenges. Two are the director’s; the third is ours. First, to shoot in ruins, what remains of Roman baths. Two thousand years of history watch us. Second, and perhaps the most important, to explore a form of intimacy and camaraderie among men that cinema has not always known how to look at. The third challenge is to find the point in all this. Modest in means and ambitious in goals.

By P. Engel

Fiction surpassed reality in the case of Tania Head, a survivor of the Twin Towers who was never there, and who also invented that one of the deceased was her boyfriend. She maintained the deception for more than five years until she was unmasked. This same newspaper revealed her true identity as the Barcelonan Alicia Esteve, and she disappeared from the map. Kike Maíllo has found her, but the most beautiful thing about the case is that he decided not to show her, protecting her from public scorn and avoiding any moral judgment, because after all, in her own way, she is also a survivor.

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