The Days to Come

With “The Days to Come”, director Carlos Marqués-Marcet has staged a gripping Spanish drama that makes clever use of reality. The film depicts the actual experiences of actress Maria Rodriguez Soto, whose partner David Verdaguer is shooting a film with Marqués-Marcet when she becomes pregnant after just one year of dating. Newly arrived as a couple, the two actors already have to adjust to life as a threesome. The award-winning Spanish film focuses on this exciting process, depicting not only the course of the pregnancy but also the emotional rollercoaster ride of the parents-to-be. For nine months, the film follows the real fears, the problems, but also the expectations and anticipation that come with an unexpected pregnancy. "Films often either simply celebrate having babies or glide over the messiness it involves, but Days, whose shoot was presumably an emotional roller-coaster ride for all concerned, does neither, tackling the complex mess of emotions at the heart of the situation with great delicacy and extreme compassion. The result is an involving item with an attractively grungy homemade feel that, given its status between fact and fiction, rings true from first frame to last. It is this quality that presumably led to its winning three awards at Spain's recent Malaga fest, with further festival screenings likely for viewers who like their romances rooted in the real." (Jonathan Holland, on: www.hollywoodreporter.com)