Queens Reinas

Preceded by: Hairy Legs

Drama
1 hr 45min – Not Rated – Released 2024

Queens (Reinas), Klaudia Reynicke’s understated, moving family drama is set in 1990s Lima, Peru as the country is in the grip of inflation and citizens are subjected to rolling blackouts, distant explosions and a threatening military presence that imposes a strict curfew. Not surprising that many residents who can afford to do so are fleeing the country. One is Elena (Jimena Lindo), who’s secured a job in Minnesota and plans to exit with her two daughters, teenager Aurora (Luana Vega) and younger Lucia (Abril Gjurinovic), who emerges as the heart of the film.

Elena runs around Lima securing visas and, in one tense moment, obtains a wad of American dollars with money exchanger on the bustling street, depicted with a gritty realism that shows the daily indignities of living under a corrupt regime. Meanwhile, Elena needs ex-husband Carlos (Gonzalo Molina) to sign the requisite papers so his daughters, whom Carlos affectionately calls his “queens,” can travel abroad. But Carlos is an unreliable cab driver given to tall tales. He can be charming but he’s clearly trouble when his sudden presence in the girls’ lives threatens to derail Elena’s plans. Aurora realizes she can manipulate him; the inquisitive but innocent Lucia believes his lies.

Within minutes of our introduction to him, down on his luck, Peruvian taxi driver Carlos (Gonzalo Molina) will claim he’s an actor, he works at an export company, he does “security stuff,” he’s been hunting crocodiles in the jungle, and he survived a car bombing at a police station. The one thing this gentle fabulist is not is a decent father, and his desire to change that before it’s too late forms the crux of director Klaudia Reynicke’s supremely well-observed Queens (Reinas). The Swiss-Peruvian Reynicke has achieved a minor miracle here, assiduously avoiding melodrama as Carlos tries to reinsert himself into the lives of young daughters Aurora (Luana Vega) and Lucia (Abril Gjurinovic) before their mother, Elena (Jimena Lindo), permanently relocates them to America.

Klaudia Reynicke has crafted an authentic, poignant piece of cinema that will resonate with so many. It’s a personal, small-scale story told in the shadow of world-altering events, a perfect environment in which characters can be explored and developed. The film resists teasing out more pat narrative threads… and instead concerns itself with the small, personal moments that define relationships; the stories we tell, the time we spend, and the ways we try, and too often fail, to show love. Her focus on the family is even more impressive considering the film is set in Lima in 1992, a dangerous period of hyperinflation, civil unrest, and terrorism-fueled political violence. But such real-world considerations are kept mostly hovering like a shadow in the background as Elena tries to navigate Carlos’ reentry into her daughters’ lives while hoping he won’t scuttle their bright American future. Reinas, which is Reynicke’s third feature, is a deftly told drama of great sensitivity that’s attentive to the needs of its well-drawn characters.