The Bad Intentions

The film opens with an unseen narrator recounting the costly sacrifices Peruvian military leaders once made for the country, framed by a picture show. The narration establishes a backdrop of national turmoil that contrasts with the intimate world Cayetana inhabits. The opening sets the tonal thread of public history meeting private sorrow.

A siren blares and the girls evacuate from the classroom. On the ride home, Cayetana sits mostly silent while a driver calls her 'Miss Cayetana.' She offers her medication to a beggar, remarking that it suppresses the appetite.

Back at home, Cayetana sits alone at a table laden with food and refuses to touch it, until a maid scolds her and clears the dishes. The maids fuss over her every morning to look pretty for her mother’s return, but the moment the news of her mother’s pregnancy arrives, Cayetana recoils in anger and storms off.

She runs away for a time, getting lost in the city before she is quietly returned to the family. The episode widens the rift between Cayetana and her mother as she wrestles with the idea of a new baby.

On the baby’s delivery date, Cayetana makes a chilling choice to punish her mother by withdrawing her affection. She contemplates an ultimate withdrawal from life, a stark sign of her desperate need to be seen.

At school, Cayetana finds a glimmer of companionship in her cousin Jimena, a chronically ill girl who follows her to the bathroom and shares her own lunch when Cayetana discards hers. This fragile bond gives Cayetana a rare moment of connection before the mood at home grows heavier.

Their worried parents decide to send her away on a vacation to Lima with Jimena’s family after the holidays, hoping a change of scenery might help. The plan is meant to provide structure and distance from the home turmoil, but Cayetana remains emotionally unsettled.

The vacation is sunlit and carefree on beaches and boats, yet it feels hollow because there is no stable routine. When Cayetana’s mother and stepfather unexpectedly return, Cayetana refuses even a hug from her visibly pregnant mother, and the warmth quickly evaporates.

A medical emergency strikes Jimena, sending her to the hospital and leaving Cayetana alone on the beach. The girl climbs a towering sand dune and experiences a vision-like encounter with Peruvian heroes and Jimena, who tells Cayetana that she loves her and will watch over her.

When the vacation ends, the family returns to a robbed house, underscoring the unravelling stability of Cayetana’s world. A few days later, Cayetana’s mother and stepfather depart again for the hospital, leaving her to be cared for by the household staff.

Cayetana is taken to the hospital to see her newborn half-brother, wandering the wards and eventually ending up outside Jimena’s room. The hospital setting intensifies the sense of fragile families and shifting loyalties as Cayetana searches for belonging.

The doctor mimes actions to Jimena in the hospital nursery to test her coordination, and Cayetana watches as Jimena no longer recognizes her. The moment marks a cruel turning point in their bond as memory and recognition fade within the family.

In the maternity ward, Cayetana points to the wrong baby, declaring she will not be upstaged by her mother's new son. She then slips into the nursery and finally meets her own newborn baby brother, a troubling moment of confused belonging.

The film lingers on Cayetana’s quiet gaze as she negotiates love, loss, and a new, complicated sense of family belonging. Her clarity arrives in a moment of unexpected understanding rather than external resolution.