You Have to Come and See It

Two couples of friends, Elena and Daniel, and Susana and Guillermo, who have not seen each other in about a year, reconnect at a live performance of a musical piece by Chano Domínguez at Madrid’s Café Central. The reunion is warm but grounded in the everyday: Guillermo and Susana have moved to a new house in the suburbs, inviting Elena and Daniel to visit, claiming it’s only about half an hour by train from Atocha. The news that Susana is pregnant lands as a surprising but not shocking development for Elena, while Daniel is visibly startled, and their conversation back at the apartment quickly brushes over the formalities to focus on what lies ahead—raising questions about family, choice, and timing.

Six months later, the two couples reunite for a trip to the new home, this time by Cercanías train. A misstep with the C-3 and C-10 lines lands them near Alpedrete instead of their intended station, and Guillermo meets them by car to guide them through the unfamiliar terrain and shared spaces of his town. They arrive at the house, a place that once belonged to Susana’s father, only to learn that Susana has experienced a termination of her pregnancy. Guillermo explains that he intends to use the garage for manual woodworking, a detail that shifts the atmosphere from casual visit to a more intimate, almost domestic project, as everyone settles into lunch. The dynamic among the four remains close, yet a quiet tension threads through conversations about growth, restlessness, and the couple’s evolving sense of home.

Elena, always drawn to ideas and books, opens a volume she has just finished reading—You Must Change Your Life by Peter Sloterdijk—and she finds herself eager to dissect its concept of anthropotechnics. Daniel, who has begun reading the same work, finds himself pulled into a speculative dialogue, while Elena more than once tries to steer the group toward a broader conversation about human effort and self-improvement. Meanwhile, Elena and Susana discuss the more personal aspects of Susana’s life in the new suburban setting, touching on happiness, expectations, and the unsettling possibility of pregnancy again. The four friends drift between light lunch and deep, probing conversations, and the mood shifts as they play a lively round of ping pong, followed by a walk through the surrounding countryside.

A lighter, impish moment arrives when Elena lags behind the others and briefly uses the outdoors as a private, unguarded space—an unposed scene that brings a smile to the group and to the film itself, which uses a Super 8 segment to insert itself into the narrative, creating a nostalgic, grainy texture that contrasts with the present-day dialogue. As the camera moment blends with memory, the day winds down and the afternoon settles into quiet reflection. The film then folds these scenes together in its final cadence, leaving the audience with a nuanced sense of friendship, choice, and the weight of life’s possible paths.

• Throughout, the tone remains measured and observant, capturing how long-established bonds adapt to new stages of life.

• The narrative centers on the tension between desire for continuity and the realities of change, especially surrounding family planning and personal fulfillment.

• The setting—Madrid’s urban center, then a suburban home with a garage-lit by shared labor—frames the shifts in the characters’ inner lives without rushing toward a definitive resolution.

• The inclusion of Sloterdijk’s ideas and the Super 8 insertions emphasize a meta-awareness of memory and self-fashioning, while the everyday scenes of cooking, talking, and playing ping pong keep the film grounded in human texture.

• By the end, the audience is left with a quiet, unresolved sense of what it means to grow up together while choosing individual routes, and how friendship can endure even when paths diverge.

Last Updated: October 01, 2025 at 10:23