Direction: Paula Hernandez
Country: Argentina
A couple in crisis, Luisa (Érica Rivas) and Emilio (Luis Ziembrowski), alongside their 14-year-old daughter, Ana (Ornella D'Elía), gather with the rest of the family at the country house of the dominant matriarch, Memé (Marilú Marini). It's New Year’s Eve in Argentina and the normal tensions and conflicts between adults within a family feel insignificant here, as a more complex tragedy takes place, leaving irreversible emotional marks.
Shot with a refined taste and hanging on subtle details to illustrate what’s with each character, Paula Hernandez’s The Sleepwalkers succeeds in piling up small doses of tension that end up bursting into an agonizing climax.
An extremely talented cast makes everything in the flesh, but it would be unfair not to stress the magnificent performances of Rivas and D’Elía, who ensure the credibility of a mother-daughter relationship.
Despite all its strengths as a sobering, wrenching and well-acted drama, The Sleepwalkers faces some limitations, the biggest of them being the predictability of the story. The way Hernandez mounted the script makes no room for surprises, yet, the film still poses interesting questions about responsibility. Is there anything that could have been done to avoid such an atrocious outcome of this Argentinian family reunion?
