There is a certain pantheon of talented film directors, like Guido Anselmi and Ferrand, whose names barely ring a bell. Yet you know 8½ and Day for Night––these are the films they appear in. Esteban Martínez (Javier Bardem at his most visceral since Iñárritu’s Biutiful), the leading character from Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s latest feature, The Beloved, surely belongs to the category of greatest non-existent auteurs. Reminiscent of Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, this film promises less and then gives more than one would have expected—yet another vivisection of family animosities and the importance of art in their lives.
Sorogoyen gets our attention right from the start, boldly opening his latest with an impressive, 20-minute sequence solely centered on the conversation between its two main characters. When Esteban meets with his estranged daughter, Emilia (Victoria Luengo), the room fills with both awkwardness and uncertainty. Like Skarsgård’s Gustav Borg, Esteban was destined for greatness, but it has cost him everything, including, most importantly, the love of his daughter. It’s no surprise that the theater of masks is quickly established—it’ll take them a little while to let go of the facade. Through basic shot-reverse technique, Sorogoyen intensifies the unease hidden somewhere behind their fake smiles. With every single cut, the camera gradually approaches them, making the close-ups even more tangible, as if Sorogoyen seeks to reach their soul.
How are you? “Bien.” And you? “Bien.” How is life? “Bien.” “Bien,” “bien,” “bien”––this single Spanish word flies back and forth faster than throwing knives at the opening night of a circus. Its repeated utterance tells us everything about their relationship, then more. Until this point, their chit-chat seems vague, which proves how far they have been from each other throughout the years. Even when Esteban asks about her mother (who also used to be an actress), whom he left after they completed their first film together, she replies with another sole “bien.”
Although their characters belong to two different worlds, Bardem and Luengo elicit their on-screen chemistry like none other. With each gesture, the characters’ estrangement is echoed; with each “bien,” the inner sadness is acknowledged; with every single silly remark, the friction starts to stand out. He knows it, she knows it, so, after a few minutes, Esteban cuts to the chase. “What do you know about the conflict in the Western Sahara?” he asks, and it’s not really a question you expect to hear from your dad during a reunion.
Both Esteban, the director, and Esteban, the father, want her to star as a lead in his new historical film. For Emilia, it’s a rather weird question. She is an actress who gave up on her Hollywood dreams and now works as a waitress. And it’s a stressful existence, too: she takes off her sweater and orders a glass of red right after finishing her first beer. “I’m gonna be tough,” Esteban claims. As you can already imagine, it’s not the last time we will see Bardem’s darker side in The Beloved. But Emilia gently smiles as a certain excitement brews.
The whole exchange tells us everything about those two. One wants to reconcile, the other is ready to go and defy the entire world as the ego remains wounded. They remember old vistas differently, like the one time when they went to see the second Kill Bill. Esteban recalls it as a rather warm moment between them, though his daughter disagrees (“You turned up drunk and high”). The memory is not a reliable source; it only consists of nasty fissures. That’s the sole reason old wounds re-open, and they are nearly at each other’s throats, but Emilia takes on her father’s offer. The curiosity, filled with longing after her papa, turns out to be stronger than hatred. It takes them sixteen minutes to have their first quarrel. The clash concludes with a draw, but round two will commence shortly—this time on the set of Esteban’s film.
Sorogoyen is eager to spy on his characters through the periphery. When they start shooting, we follow Esteban and Emilia through the eyes of the film set, its crew, and the entire equipment, so that, from time to time, The Beloved changes its register or applies various visual aesthetics, including black-and-white shots. Each perspective hits differently, allowing spectators to perceive the very same people through completely new colors. In this sense, Sorogoyen is more keen on showing the process of making the film, the whole human factor within it, and not the actual results. Yes, the pressure reaches its boiling point, and Esteban is not a compassionate person, to say the least, but he wants to atone for his sins. And Emilia is her father’s daughter, no matter the odds. So she keeps on giving, and giving, and giving. A chance like that will never happen again for any of them.
The director of critically acclaimed The Beasts is not interested in the Sahara project they are working on, but in the father and daughter’s roles in it. Take, for instance, an awe-inspiring sequence of shooting an in-film dinner. Shot from a plethora of set-ups and POVs, it’s an intense, hilarious masterclass in balancing the comical with the dramatic—an interaction that is, at some point, so horrifying and extreme that it takes Esteban and Emilia’s relationship to a whole new level. “There are things more important than art,” says Emilia earlier when drunk. It’s a lesson that Esteban learns every day in the harshest way possible. It’s just another moment that mercilessly tears them apart, even though they really try to release the pressure and pretend that, at least for a while, they are father and daughter again.
The pain, although still lingering, will finally be acknowledged. But it is only up to Esteban and Emilia if they let go of yesterday and embrace tomorrow. With The Beloved, Bardem adds to his filmography a role that is no longer doomed, a ferocious performance for which he deserves all possible merits. There is a light in a tunnel that Esteban strives for, as he describes himself as a “changed man.” Not sure if Emilia and the spectator trust him on this one, but there is nothing better than cinema that asks you to place your trust and take a certain leap of faith. Esteban is a proud figure, like all acclaimed directors. What a cliché, right? But in the world they strive to create, life actually does revolve around them. Perhaps that’s what makes The Beloved hit home on so many levels.
The Beloved premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.