Film Review: Rosario (8/10)

A Prayer for the Living Disguised as a Ghost Story

Rosario, directed and written by María Fernanda Reyes, is a hauntingly beautiful Mexican drama that blurs the line between the living and the lost. Starring Adriana Paz, Tenoch Huerta, and Isela Vega (in one of her final performances), the film follows a small-town nurse named Rosario who begins experiencing visions of her late grandmother — visions that seem to awaken a curse tied to generations of women in her family.

Part supernatural mystery, part generational meditation, Rosario unfolds like a whispered prayer. It’s a story about faith, guilt, and the quiet strength it takes to forgive those who came before you.

STORY (2/2)

Rosario takes place in a remote Oaxacan village where tradition and modernity coexist uneasily. Reyes’s script refuses to separate myth from memory — the dead are not intruders here but companions, shaping daily life as surely as sunlight or rain. The narrative moves slowly but purposefully, following Rosario as she pieces together her family’s buried history through rituals, letters, and ghostly encounters.

What’s remarkable is how Rosario treats the supernatural as both emotional and spiritual logic. The hauntings aren’t cheap shocks; they’re conversations — sometimes tender, sometimes terrifying — between generations that never stopped loving or wounding each other. The story resists Western pacing and embraces cycles: of trauma, of faith, of rebirth.

At its core, Rosario is about women carrying invisible burdens. The curse that haunts the family isn’t demonic — it’s inherited silence. Each act of remembering becomes resistance, and every whispered prayer feels like both confession and rebellion. Reyes has written something that honors her roots without romanticizing them.

VISUALS (2/2)

Visually, Rosario is extraordinary. Cinematographer Lucía Gaitán paints with candlelight and shadow, creating compositions that feel sacred even when they’re simple. The palette is earthy and tactile — warm ochres, soft greens, and deep indigos that echo traditional textiles.

The camera moves slowly, like breath. Long takes linger on hands, faces, smoke curling from incense — reminding us that spirituality lives in details. There’s a stunning recurring image of Rosario reflected in a bowl of water, her face dissolving as ripples form — a perfect metaphor for how grief distorts identity.

Practical effects and in-camera tricks give the film’s supernatural moments a handmade intimacy. When spirits appear, they shimmer like memories rather than monsters. It’s the rare film where cinematography and emotion are inseparable — each frame feels like a prayer bead turned slowly in the light.

SOUND (2/2)

If the visuals are sacred, the sound is its echo. The sound design, supervised by Carlos Cortés Navarrete, builds a living landscape of whispers, wind, and distant bells. Every element of the mix feels intentional — silence is used as often as melody.

Composer Natalia Lafourcade (yes, that Lafourcade, in her first full film score) delivers something extraordinary: an acoustic and choral blend that feels equal parts hymn and lullaby. The music never forces emotion — it reveals it. In several key scenes, songs fade in like memories returning after years of repression.

Dialogue remains grounded and clear, often switching between Spanish, Zapotec, and Nahuatl. Subtitles honor the rhythm of speech rather than translate it too neatly, preserving the film’s cultural pulse. The sound in Rosario isn’t just heard — it’s felt, like vibration through soil.

CHARACTER (1/2)

Adriana Paz anchors the film with a quiet, internal performance that radiates empathy. Her Rosario is a woman trying to keep her faith intact in a world that constantly tests it. There’s something sacred about how she moves — gentle, deliberate, as if aware the ancestors are always watching.

Tenoch Huerta, as her estranged brother, brings weight and skepticism, grounding the mystical in masculine realism. Their scenes together are electric — two sides of a family’s wound colliding under the same roof. Isela Vega, in her brief but unforgettable final role, feels almost prophetic — her voice, cracked but powerful, delivers some of the film’s most haunting lines.

If there’s one limitation, it’s that the secondary characters occasionally feel like symbols more than people — the priest, the young mother, the outsider journalist. They serve purpose but not always depth. Still, the ensemble carries a sense of shared reverence that keeps the story’s humanity intact.

FACTOR X (1/2)

What makes Rosario linger isn’t just what’s seen — it’s what’s felt. The film’s spirit is gentle, reverent, and defiantly rooted in Latin American identity. It’s both specific and universal: a story about one woman’s haunting that becomes a mirror for every family that’s ever tried to heal across generations.

The only reason it doesn’t score perfectly here is pacing. For some viewers, Rosario’s quiet rhythm may feel glacial. But if you surrender to it, you’re rewarded with something rare — a horror film that doesn’t chase fear, but communion. It’s not designed to make you scream; it’s meant to make you remember.

At its core, Glamping is a film about image — how we present ourselves, how we’re seen, and what happens when those two realities clash. It’s ambitious, messy, and full of heart, even when its craft can’t keep up with its ideas. The sound design shines, performances are sincere, and themes feel timely — but disjointed pacing, uneven visuals, and surface-level storytelling keep it from rising above average.

Still, Glamping deserves credit for taking swings in an age of safe storytelling. It might not hit the bullseye, but it’s aiming for something honest — and that counts.

FINAL SCORE: 8/10

Where to Watch: AppleTV