Dealing with the loss of a loved one is a very popular topic in Hollywood and abroad. Films have been dealing with this topic for decades.They have even made fun of the topic. Having gone through a series of losses myself in the last six months, I understand loss more than most. Most recently, my father passed away two weeks ago, so it’s been a hard time for me and my family. Forastera is an interesting take on the loss of a loved one, but it doesn’t sugarcoat it at all either. That’s the important part about stories such as this one. I was genuinely impressed by how the filmmaker told the story in a respectful way.

Catalina “Cata” as she is called (Zoe Stein) is a teenage girl on summer vacation on the island of Mallorca off the coast of Spain. She likes to lay out in the sun and go canoe riding in the ocean adjacent to the island she is staying at with her sister, Eva (Martina Garcia), Grandmother, also known as Catalina (Marta Angelat) and her grandfather Lomeu (Lluis Homar) in a beautiful home overlooking the beach and blue jade ocean. When a tragedy happens, it changes the way the Stein character acts. She takes the loss of her loved one differently than the rest of her family. Everybody takes a loss differently. 

Zoe Stein is a young Spanish actress that I hadn’t noticed before. I’m watching her in this film and from the moment she came on screen when she was sunbathing, she was mesmerizing to me. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was glued to everything she was doing in this movie. So when she started trying to emulate her lost loved one, I thought that was a bit strange. Even her sister and mother were concerned about the way she was going around in the clothes of her lost loved one. Making recipes that that person had perfected and sharing the results with the rest of the family. The main reason she was doing this was to help replace this person in the eyes of another member of her family. She succeeded in this endeavor for a while. This film is going to put her on the map, and I can’t wait to see what else she does from this point moving forward.

The cinematography of this movie, as you imagine, is absolutely breathtaking. The backdrops, while characters are biking or sitting out on a terrace, are stunning to look at the Blue Ocean, the gold sand beaches, and the green palm trees all part of this gorgeous location. When a film or television/streaming show has such a location as this, it becomes part of the story. In this case, the dichotomy between the somber way characters were acting after the tragic loss, and the gorgeous aesthetic of the backdrop was interesting to me. Add in the beautiful Stein to the mix, and you have one of the most realistically beautiful movies I’ve seen all year.

The supporting cast of this movie was okay. The grandfather character played by Homar had a reserved side to him. When the film hadn’t gotten to the tragedy yet, he was quiet, and did his thing regarding playing cards with his buddies on the terrace, but the tragedy happens he goes into a shell as a character. I guess that’s to be expected considering the loss he faced. The sister and mother characters weren’t a big factor in the story that much. They appeared once in a while on screen, but they didn’t have much of an impact on me. This film was more of a two-hander in that regard. The others were window dressing if you will. That’s an important part of movies, though. 

Having just gone through the loss of my father, I can understand what this movie was going for. The thing is, I didn’t get along with my father that well. The characters in this film got along with each other quite well. There was a genuine love and effectiveness that the family in this film had for one another. I genuinely felt the love everyone had. That kind of love can bond a family together like nothing else. Using the cooking and dress up was a coping mechanism for the lead character to help the other character to try and get over this loss they were facing. This was something new to me. I haven’t lost that many people in my life, so I didn’t understand how it could hurt on so many different levels. Creating a coping mechanism in this regard makes a lot of sense.

Forastera is an exercise in loss and dealing with that loss. Anyway, one can. People deal with loss in many different ways. I had never seen loss handled this way on screen. It was beautifully done. The writer/director Lucia Alenar did a great job trying to get the audience to understand that. The gorgeous setting of the island of Mallorca was a perfect dichotomy to the somber existence characters had to live in during this time. Stein was a revelation to me in this film. She was new to me while watching the movie, but I’ll remember her from now on going forward. She had me glued to the screen every moment she was on screen. Having dealt with my own loss recently, I can commiserate with the characters in this film. Dealing with loss isn’t easy. It takes time to get over it. This movie deals with this concept very well from my perspective. 

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen