Main navigation

Madrid 1987 Ita -

The setup is deceptively simple. Miguel (José Sacristán), an aging, cynical journalist and former leftist intellectual, meets Ángela (María Valverde), a beautiful, ambitious young film student. They discuss an interview over lunch. But when their older friend—who owns the apartment they’ve retreated to—leaves and locks the door behind him, the pair find themselves trapped. Not in a grand living room, but in the apartment’s cramped, windowless bathroom.

What follows is not a horror film, but something far more unsettling: an intellectual and emotional autopsy. On the surface, Madrid, 1987 is a chamber piece about a May–December attraction. But beneath the water-stained tiles, it’s a sharp allegory for Spain’s fractured transition from Francoist dictatorship to modernity. Miguel is the old guard—weary, compromised, full of theoretical fire he long ago stopped believing in. Ángela is the new Spain: eager, educated, sexually liberated, but naïve about the weight of history pressing down on her. Madrid 1987 ita

★★★★☆ (4/5) Unflinching, smart, and deeply human. Just don’t watch it with your parents. The setup is deceptively simple