Now available on Shudder
A teen runaway ends up in a group home that is much closer to a jail. When she arrives, she discovers the groups and cliques as well as a plan to get out.
Written and directed by Jayro Bustamante, Rita is a fairytale-like dream-nightmare-waking-hallucination of a film that is almost more style over substance but once the story gets going and the viewer catches up with the characters, it becomes a tale harder to deal with emotionally than expected. The writing here is strong and had many underlying themes beyond teen girls in what looks like a correctional facility. The themes here are heavy and they are not avoided or danced around but taken on directly giving the viewer a very clear view of the issues these girls are facing and how it is affecting them as well as why they were put in there. The film builds a sort of self-protective society within the walls of the facility, with classes and ranks, most of them taken from fairytales and other kids’ stories. The direction here is also quite good, keeping the themes and the moods here, going for a very stylized filming design.
The cast here is mostly composed of teenage girls who are sorted by their outfits and their sort of houses where you can find angels, fairies, witches, and more. The lead, the titular character of Rita is the newest arrival, and she is sent to live with the angels’ group where she’s given a white outfit and wings that she needs to wear at all times or else. Actress Giuliana Santa Cruz plays Rita with subtlety when needed and a more direct approach at other times, she imbues her character with humanity, emotions, and nuance. She gives a strong performance that shows emotional maturity and a grasp of the difficult themes at hand. Joining her and shining in all her scenes is Alejandra Vásquez as Bebé. Her performance is both joyous and incredibly sad, giving the story balance and a strong supporting character and cast member. The rest of the girls are good adding emotions and layers to the story while the guards’ cast is tough and at times absolutely disgusting, showing that the adult cast is doing great work as well.
The cinematography by Inti Briones (and team) is stunning here. The lighting is also something that was clearly carefully planned. Together, they create lands of sort for each group of girls and one for the guards, giving each their own atmosphere and mood while filming them in beautiful ways. This film knew what it wanted to look like and made a concerted effort to achieve it which leads to looks that are beautiful and sad, carefully planned and free at times. It’s one of those films where the images are almost as important as the story and the cast. It’s one of those films that one can easily get lost into its images and completely forget to read the subtitles.
Rita is a stunning and sad film about girls sent to a facility when all they needed was help to get out of bad situations. Girls who came from abusive homes, girls who had to run away, girls who needed someone there for them and ended up in this place where they are abused differently, where they have to rely on each other for survival. The film makes a great allegory for the foster care system and for youth correctional facilities by showing how girls (and children in general) may use fairytales and imagination to escape their situations. The film makes many points that may require more than one viewing to catch all of them and it makes them while giving the viewer a whole world to explore, one that is beautifully created and filmed.