By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Esteban Roel | Juanfer Andrés
Starring: Carolina Bang | Jesús Ángel Castrodeza | Macarena Gómez | Silvia Alonso
Original language title: Musaraña
Country: france, spain
Year: 2014
Running time: 95
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3417756/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Brett says: “For SHREW’S NEST’s lead character Montse, the Biblical consideration ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ is more of an emphatic statement rather than a question. And in this case, she is not a brother’s keeper, rather her sister’s. In fact, the notion of Montse’s ever having an actual brother is better left unimagined for the benefit of any such unborn sibling.
“SHREW’S NEST is uncomfortable. SHREW’S NEST is meticulous. SHREW’S NEST is a thriller that shines. The film is equal parts complex and basic. To lay out the narrative in a 25-word or less blurb is certainly doable, as most thrillers are. The narrative subtleties that guide the process, however, are the contents for which film discussions were invented and the reason why SHREW’S NEST offers something more than a mere thriller. Rather than be beaten over the head with a plot featuring a deranged and imbalanced lead, the film allows any psychoses along the way to be discovered and analyzed, as they should.
“It is a plot with a remarkable sense of depth even though it never once leaves the confines of an apartment building. In fact, barring a minuscule couple of tension-building moments in the film, the directors trap the audience in a single flat for the film’s entirety. That alone is enough of a narrative device to insert the audience into the level of discomfort and restlessness for which it is intended. But the storytelling is thickened by even more visual, auditory, and cognitive allure than that little piece of mental imprisonment.
“It would be criminal to proceed further in discussing the film’s merits without gushing over the performance of Macarena Gomez as Montse. For a character built for both audience sympathy and disapproval, Gomez delivers. For a writer and performer, it is far easier to stay in a lane and drive a character forward, but Gomez delicately cradles this juggling act of character development from scene to scene despite the high demand of having to portray a woman whose ongoing war between progress and regression is essential to her personality framework. As a result, the climactic moments of the film score big.
“While it is clear that Gomez’s performance is one of the critical hands steering the success of SHREW’S NEST, fellow actors also support the film’s cause quite adequately. Most remarkable is the attention to detail of the directors when handling each character. In fact, this is what makes each supporting character work, whereas it is evident that Gomez is the one actor most in command of her character.
“As alluded to earlier, Montse’s sister is critical to the story. If it appears that the name of this character has been neglected up to this point, it is because the writer-director combo of Juanfer Andres and Esteban Roel slip this little nugget of information right by the audience all the way to the end. Although not essential to the thrill of the plot itself, this is just one of the film’s many nuances that layer a masterful job of storytelling. The already lost childhood and the continued search for identity for this 18-year old girl on the brink of womanhood is reinforced by the fact that we cannot even attach a name to the second-most featured face of the film.
“One other example of the cleverness of the directors can be found in the use of scenes featuring Montse’s father. Early in the film, a distinct flashback to a critical time in Montse and her father’s lives is the only time he is not featured among the sisters in the present day setting. Though fourteen years removed from actually being a part of his daughters’ lives, the perfect use of camera sweeps and blind reveals make the flashbacks to the character from the past very much a visceral haunt of the women’s everyday existence in the present. Pair that with the strategically placed references to a prominent Christian upbringing scattered throughout the film and the audience has plenty to chew on while the here-and-now part of the plot’s timeline plays itself out.
“Inasmuch as SHREW’S NEST bangs about its featured part of the story in a linear fashion, the beauty of the film is giving the audience the ability to construct another piece of the plot on their own as more ties to the situation within the claustrophobic confines of the apartment peek out from the shadows of truth. It is amazing how the audience is seduced into cutting off the idea of an outside world amid the fish bowl existence for Montse and her sister.
“Sure to be compared to some of the plot elements of MISERY, for everything the Stephen King adaptation is or isn’t, SHREW’S NEST excels past it all. Sure to make audiences squirm, it is the artistry with which the directors accomplish the feat that makes the film tick. It is not reliant on shock for shock’s sake to keep the thrill going. Resonating clearly even hours after some of the most intense scenes was the careful planning of camerawork, lights, and sound. It is obvious that the film-makers shifted far away from taking the easy way out in composing an anything-but-standard thriller.”