I Am Nevenka – first-look review | Little White Lies

Festivals

I Am Neven­ka – first-look review

21 Sep 2024

Words by David Jenkins

Two adults, a man and a woman, sitting closely at a table in a dimly lit restaurant.
Two adults, a man and a woman, sitting closely at a table in a dimly lit restaurant.
Icíar Bollaín’s tabloidy but worth­while #MeToo dra­ma tells of a vic­tim of sex­u­al abuse with­in Spain’s local polit­i­cal scene.

The haunt­ing bel­low of the cir­ca-2000 Nokia 3310 text mes­sage alert rings through Icíar Bollaín’s I Am Neven­ka, detail­ing the true life exploits of one-time may­or of Pon­fer­ra­da and sex­u­al abuser, Ismael Álvarez. Yet the sto­ry is told from the per­spec­tive of his har­ried vic­tim, Neven­ka Fer­nán­dez (Mireia Ori­ol), whose swift ascent up the ranks of the city coun­cil led her to be ensnared in Álvarez’ wide net of influ­ence – his inces­sant calls and mes­sages were only part of the problem.

The film is a valid con­tin­u­a­tion of a small but vital sub-genre of #MeToo cin­e­ma that has sought to uncov­er and denounce the exploits of pow­er­ful men who are will­ing to go to any dis­tance to get what they want. We meet Naven­ka as a naieve uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent who decides to return to her home­town to take up a posi­tion on the local coun­cil while com­plet­ing her degree in Madrid. Her female col­leagues are instant­ly wise to how and why this young, attrac­tive, appar­ent­ly-mal­leable woman is able to make such a strong impres­sion, while male col­leagues have the same thoughts, but want to make sure they’re keep­ing the boss hap­py by turn­ing a blind eye.

Urko Olaz­a­bal as Álvarez goes for full-on preda­tor mode, his ter­ri­fy­ing, toothy smile often mak­ing Naven­ka bri­dle in fear. As a man who’s polit­i­cal­ly savvy enough in the deal-mak­ing stakes, he lets his inten­tions be known ear­ly, forc­ing Naven­ka to con­sid­er that she’s per­haps not here entire­ly for her pro­fes­sion­al nous. After being ban­jaxed into a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship, she quick­ly backs away, believ­ing that her influ­en­tial pay­mas­ter will be the gen­tle­man and accept his defeat. And that’s when things start to get very nasty.

There are parts dur­ing the mid-sec­tion of the film which play like a hor­ror movie, in which Álvarez’ mere pres­ence bor­ders on the pan­tomime vil­lain. Oriol’s over­ly-expres­sive per­for­mance resem­bles that of a scream queen try­ing to escape a haunt­ed house, and maybe that’s the point of the film? And like with hor­ror movies, you see things hap­pen in which you ques­tion inter­nal­ly, Run! Go away! Get out of there!”. And yet, Neven­ka can­not move, frozen in fear, but also wise to the hor­ren­dous ram­i­fi­ca­tions to fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues if she were to make a scene, par­tic­u­lar­ly know­ing that Álvarez oper­ates more like a pop­ulist crime boss than a local politico.

Yet, Bol­laín does not ignore this, and returns to the ques­tion of why Neven­ka doesn’t just escape and start a new life else­where. And while the film does push things into griz­zly soap opera ter­ri­to­ry at times, a lot more intent with focus­ing on the moments of pri­vate psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse than offer­ing some­thing a lit­tle more nuanced, it does at least try to account for that. It’s a trashy, tabloid‑y film, but it’s a fine one, and a sto­ry that still needs to be told again, and again, and again.

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