Perdida – ***½

Perdida (Alejandro Montiel, 2017) – Some Foreign Rights – Mystery Thriller

Reported Budget: $20 million (IMDB)

Pipa (Luisana Lopilato) is a detective with a special unit in the Buenos Aires police force that looks for missing persons. Like many onscreen detectives before her, she is very good at her job but also aggressive and reckless. She is driven by a mix of guilt and sadness over the tragic disappearance of her best friend Cornelia when the two were teens on a group trip to Patagonia. Pipa has never given up on trying to find her missing friend and when she is goaded into re-opening the case by Cornelia´s family, her investigation leads her to a sex-trafficking ring that runs between Spain and Argentina and which is led by the ruthless prostitute/Madame Sirena (Amaia Salamanca).

Perdida has a lot going for it in terms of crime genre fiction and capably pulls off many of the genre´s tropes. The film features two great central female performances from Luisana Lopilato and Amaia Salmanca, both of whom are beguiling to the other characters as well as the spectators. In keeping with the genre, they are shown to metaphorically be two sides of a coin and their paths must inevitably cross at the film´s climax. The actresses deserve a great deal of credit here as their roles are written as clichés. Pipa is every inch the troubled but brilliant female detective that is now a staple of noir detective stories. Sirena, for her part, is more or less a formulaic femme fatale whose steely ambition is – surprise surprise – motivated by her harsh treatment at the hands of patriarchy.

Beyond the two great leads, the film boasts a great noir atmosphere, with director Alejandro Montiel managing to evoke the right moods across an impressive range of locations and settings. I particularly enjoyed the Patagonia sections of the film, but the rainy Buenos Aires is also pretty cool (the film also moves around a sunny Spain that conceals the dark deeds carried out by the film´s characters). But the execution here is not perfect, as Montiel really overdoes it with the scoring as he tries to wring as much dread and menace out of the film as possible.

The final genre convention that is important to highlight here is the plot itself, which is very twisty indeed. Obviously I don´t want to spoil this for readers, but suffice it to say there are many reveals and reversals that are intended to shock audiences and to keep them guessing. The success of these twists will likely be relative, some viewers will like them and some won´t. I personally found that they went too far beyond plausibility at times, particularly with the survival of characters at key points in the plot when you know it would never have happened that way in real life. I also found some of the twists too predictable, though I won´t even hint at these for the sake of my readers. All in all, however, if you just enjoy films that are always turning the tables on you, if you are into Harlan Coben books or series, or if you enjoyed Mirage for example, you will likely enjoy this film too.

That said there were one or two instances of shoddy film-making that need to be pointed out. Like many films that were made on limited budgets (I can´t believe that IMDB says this was made for $20 million as production values don´t seem to be anywhere near that level), the acting can be pretty spotty, particularly in the secondary and minor roles. There are also a number of continuity problems that ended up confusing me, particularly when Sirena´s pimp´s Egipcio´s (Pedro Casablanc) beard inexplicably disappears between two climactic scenes. If you can get past these problems and the overscoring, Perdida is a pretty enjoyable Argentine noir.

 

Netflix Tendencies

Netflix Stars

Amaia Salamanca also appears in Tiempos de la Guerra, a series which was released outside of Spain as a Netflix original. She is also one of the stars of the Netflix original film Despite Everything. She also appeared in Velvet and Gran Hotel both of which have been important licensed titles for Netflix, particularly among Spanish-speaking audiences.

 

Local Hit

The film was released theatrically in Argentina, where it was released in April 2018. It opened second overall at the national box office and stayed in the top ten for six weeks.

 

Notable Corporate Alliance

Netflix bought the film from sales agents FilmSharks. FilmSharks has also sold at least two other films to the service for international release as Netflix originals: Tree of Blood and The Son.

 

Public Money

The film received subventions from Argentina´s public funder INCAA.