Queridísimo papá
2018 · 15m · España
Directed by Luis Navarrete
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, dark
Although their relationship was never good, David has been forced to care for his sick father for years — and he uses the situation to take revenge for his past with him.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The revenge-through-caretaking premise should be a melodramatic minefield, but Navarrete somehow makes the perversity *work* — it's dark comedy that doesn't wink, which is rare enough to matter.
A formally controlled study in how constraint (the domestic space, the caregiving routine) becomes the container for moral complexity; the film understands its debts to intimate family drama while refusing easy catharsis.
The entire film turns on a single recurring gesture or glance — the way David's resentment leaks through routine acts of care — and that micro-performance choice transforms what could be sentimental into something genuinely unsettling.