Ganas de reñir
2023 · 14m · España
Directed by Marta-Cora Castro
Genres: comedy, family, romance
Tones: humorous, theatrical, whimsical
Martirio, a native of Andalusia, wakes up wanting to fight while listening on the radio that the fair is starting in her town; she gets ready with her typical Andalusian dress to wait for her boyfriend Julián, who will come to pick her up to go to the fair together, and a small fight occurs that will delight the spectator.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a sweet domestic scrap wrapped in Andalusian folklore, which sounds like exactly the kind of consensus crowd-pleaser I'd normally pass on—but Castro's refusal to resolve the tension into neat reconciliation actually works, leaving you suspended in the beautiful absurdity of wanting to fight the person you love.
The theatrical staging and whimsical tone situate this squarely in a lineage of Spanish comedy-drama that values ritual and emotional excess, though the formal choices feel somewhat familiar rather than revelatory—competent in its restraint, but not pushing the form.
The entire film hinges on Castro's decision to play the fight as genuinely playful rather than bitter or farcical—that tonal precision, maintained through a single performance register, transforms what could've been sitcom material into something that actually *breathes*, finding truth in the contradiction between devotion and irritation.