The satirical psychological horror You Are Not Me centres itself on a woman who, with her partner and child, heads home for the holidays in order to surprise her parents. Yet when she arrives, she is met with a cold welcome, and discovers a strange woman who has been lodging with her family and is being treated like a daughter. Heavy with an uncanny atmosphere, the family home becomes the nucleus of a bloody and bizarre Christmas Eve gathering.
Aitana (played by Roser Tapias) is returning to Spain after spending three years away in Brazil, in tow is her Brazilian partner Gabi (Yapoena Silva) and their adopted infant son João. After arriving at the front door of Aitana’s parents’ house, and being greeted with confusion and an inhospitable response to their surprise visit, Aitana is dumbfounded to discover her previously xenophobic parents have been housing an immigrant woman named Nadia who has seemingly taken over the role of a daughter in lieu of Aitana’s estrangement from her familial household.
As Aitana’s parents, along with her wheelchair-bound brother who is deteriorating from multiple sclerosis, prepare to welcome friends and acquaintances for a Christmas Eve feast, Aitana becomes increasingly more paranoid as to the nature and intention of Nadia. Yet as the evening goes on, she soon begins to realise that perhaps everything is not as it seems, and the danger she initially perceives may be the one in danger.
Directors and writers Marisa Crespo and Moisés Romera have honed in on the real life nightmare that fills a lot of people with dread and anxiety – family gatherings during the holidays. Having to spend time with family members that are also xenophobic and homophobic is enough to send anyone a little cuckoo during one of the most stressful times of the year. You Are Not Me has bottled that anxiety expertly in its one hour and thirty-eight minutes run time. Adding to the tension is a shared sense of paranoia and the situation of familial gaslighting that audiences experience along with main character Aitana.
What begins as a depiction of a strained family dynamic and a fear of outsiders, soon unfolds as a quasi-folk horror enveloped realisation that sometimes the call is coming from inside the house. With the current political climate, You Are Not Me is a poignant portrayal of the horrors of the xenophobia exhibited by older generations, the atrocious treatment of immigrants, people of colour and members of the LGBTQIA+ community etc, yet it also depicts just how easy it is for younger generations to become initiated into right-wing sentimentalities for the sake of their own comfort and gain.
With intensely strong performances and its intriguing world building, You Are Not Me is an incredibly relatable and anxiety-inducing argument for spending the festive holidays away from the family.
You Are Not Me is now out in theatres and on digital.
4 Screams out of 5
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