La cita
2022 · 7m · España
Directed by Laura Campo
Tones: contemplative, tender
After three months of an internet relationship, Lucia and Pablo can finally see each other in person; they have decided to go to a quiet place far from everything and everyone, to be able to be alone.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Internet romance culminating in a quiet getaway sounds like the most anesthetized premise imaginable—and yet Campo seems to be doing something genuinely strange with the tenderness here, a resistance to the expected catharsis that almost feels like a refusal. I need to see what she's actually subverting.
Campo's restraint in the face of romantic momentum—the contemplative pacing, the formal commitment to stillness over gesture—situates this squarely in a lineage of European intimacy cinema that knows how to let a moment breathe without overstating it.
The decision to hold on the characters' faces in near-silence during their first physical meeting, rather than cutting away to validate the connection, is where this becomes something more than sweet—it's a technical choice that trusts the viewer's discomfort and transforms it into the entire film.