Ringo
2016 · 13m
Directed by Adrià Pagès Molina
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
A grandmother diagnosed with senile dementia insists she is possessed by the spirit of Ringo Starr, and her daughter and granddaughter agree to take her on a nostalgic trip to Liverpool.
Picked by Zoe
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The Ringo Starr possession bit is genuinely weird—a conceit that could've been maudlin grief-processing drivel, but Molina commits to the absurdity without winking, which makes the tenderness land harder than it should. I respect that it refuses to choose between whimsy and heartbreak.
A formally restrained piece that situates itself squarely in the European arthouse tradition of dementia narratives—think recent Haneke or Szumowska—but finds its own register by treating the supernatural claim with deadpan sincerity rather than ironic distance. The restraint is the point.
The decision to let the grandmother's delusion stand unremarked-upon, never explained away or made metaphorical, changes everything: it transforms what could've been a maudlin road movie into something genuinely uncanny and tender, held together by what feels like a single unbroken emotional commitment from the ensemble.