Set in 1992 Peru, Reinas follows Carlos (Gonzalo Molina), a father reconnecting with his daughters Aurora (Luana Vega) and Lucía (Abril Gjurinovic) in the weeks before their mother plans to take them to the United States to escape the unrest plaguing their country. Carlos’ signature is needed to finalize his daughters’ departure, but he stalls, making excuses. Whether this is out of pure love or avoidance — or some messy mix of both — is never clear, and that ambiguity informs much as the works through its domestic dramas.
The political unrest of the period is present but muted throughout, a part of the landscape that lightly haunts the lives on display rather than the film’s primary focus. Blackouts and curfews add texture to the story, but for Aurora and Lucía, these regulations are just part of the background of their lives. But that changes toward the end of the film, when the girls break curfew while searching for Carlos and are subsequently detained by police. Smartly, however, this moment doesn’t shift the narrative’s focus, and instead simply reminds — both the central characters here and the film’s viewers — that the world outside their family has stakes, too.
Rather than ever lean into the potential melodrama of political unrest and governmental crackdowns, the heart of Klaudia Reynicke’s film remains the relationship between a father and his daughters. Carlos is full of charm, but his unreliability is undeniable. Molina embodies this contradiction expertly, keeping Carolos a likable presence even when his flaws are laid bare. Aurora, the older daughter, understands this about her father but never push too hard, while Lucía remains blissfully unaware, her trust in him unshaken. Together, the three share moments of genuine connection that are often, tragically, undercut by Carlos’s inability to fully step up as a parent.
When Carlos at last signs the paperwork, it feels less like a resolution or turning of the page and more like a simple inevitability — it had to happen at some point, but that doesn’t mean anything has changed. Carlos is the same man he was at the film’s beginning, and his daughters leave Peru with a clearer understanding of who he is: someone who loves them deeply but who can’t seem to will himself to full meet their needs. Reinas doesn’t make excuses for him, but nor does it condemn him. It shows him as he is: a flawed parent doing his best, and a man failing to understand that his best isn’t always enough. In this way, Reynicke’s film resists teasing out more pat narrative threads, like the drama of familial separation or the weight of political unrest, and instead concerns itself with the small, personal moments that define relationships; the stories we tell, the time we spend, and the ways we try, and too often fail, to show love.
DIRECTOR: Klaudia Reynicke; CAST: Abril Gjurinovic, Luana Vega, Jimena Lindo, Gonzalo Molina; DISTRIBUTOR: Outsider Pictures; IN THEATERS: November 29; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 44 min.
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