Writers: Annie Van der Dys and César Sierra
Director: Benji Lopez
It is a rare thing to see a film about fatherhood pivot on a woman’s right to decide what happens to her body, but Annie Van der Dys and César Sierra Padres directed by Benji Lopez’s builds its drama around the consequences of Virginia doing just that. Playing out in the romcom / family drama genre, there is a predictable trajectory in the early part of the movie that leads the audience into a series of false expectations of what Padres will be yet Van der Dys and Sierra’s film evolves into a more interesting, if sentimental, reflection on parenthood.
When twin Virginia agrees to donate her eggs to help brother David and long-term partner Bruno to have a child with a surrogate, it causes a rift in the family with Virginia’s husband, Miguel, grandparents on all side and other relatives deeply divided. Concealing their success, another life-changing event only deepens the rift as David tries to raise new son Sebastian.
Staged like a tele novella, this Spanish-language film leans into the exaggerated and heightened style that dominates the early approach in Padres. Everything is big and bold, every emotion from love to jealousy and anger is writ large in the performances. Even while the characters are enduring their months’ long quest to create a child, or the marital discord it creates, their exterior lives are perfect – beautiful homes, beautifully behaved children and, for Virginia in particular, a stunning wardrobe that a Sex and the City character might envy.
But the film grows in stature following a tone change and the earnest warmth of the main characters and Van der Dys and Sierra’s painting of clear goodies and baddies becomes increasingly likeable. As Sebastian becomes a toddler, the story ups a gear with melodramatic plot twists, dramatic encounters between rival family members and staged interventions that inevitably bring the whole clan back together, but it is just what you need on a cold autumn afternoon.
And sitting underneath the schmaltzy portrayal of fatherhood is a really interesting argument about women’s right and Van der Dys and Sierra includes a light activist strand with references to Virginia’s mother taking her granddaughters to a protest while the angry Miguel’s trajectory is determined by accepting his wife’s freedom to decide what happens to her body after denying her choice for several years. That isn’t an overt strand of the drama, yet it is positive to see it in a film about men raising children in same sex relationships.
With Luciano D’Alessandro as the good-hearted David, Dayanara Torres as the impossibly perfect Virginia, Rodolfo Salas as resentful and controlling Miguel, with Marcos Carlos Cintrón’s hardworking Bruno, there is little depth to the characterisation and limited development for any of them, but this is a nice film that ends just as you imagine it will, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Padres is screening at the One Fluid Night Festival 2024.
The Reviews Hub Score:
Cosy family drama
