Directed by Jonás Trueba
Written by Jonás Trueba and Itsaso Arana
Starring Itsaso Arana, Vito Sanz, Isabelle Stoffel and María Herrador
Language: Spanish
Running time: 2 hours and 5 minutes
Not rated: language, nudity

by Audrey Callerstrom

In The August Virgin (La virgen de agosto), 32-year-old Eva (Itsaso Arana), takes two weeks in Downtown Madrid to decompress, rewind and reflect. She does it on a whim. People often leave Madrid in August due to the warm weather (high temperatures often reach 100°F), and the remaining locals celebrate with festivals of music and dance that last well into the night. The August Virgin follows Eva on her solo trip as she wanders Madrid, makes new friends and reconnects with old ones.

The August Virgin is like if the Paris scene in Frances Ha took up the whole film and the tone lent itself more toward wonder than comedy. Like Frances Ha, star Arana co-wrote the film with director Jonás Trueba. This gives a sense of authenticity to Eva’s conversations, particularly those with other women. Eva reconnects with a friend, Sofía (Mikele Urroz), who is candid with Eva about what it feels like to grow apart from friends when you have a child. It’s a terrific, tender scene between two women who are at different places in their lives. Eva makes a new friend, María (María Herrador) who performs reiki on her as a way to alleviate menstrual cramps. Eva flirts with an old friend underneath misting pergolas, dances at a festival, follows new friends to a hidden after-hours bar. The sense of possibility during each late night is exciting. Where will she go? Who will she meet? When does she sleep?

Arana is terrific as Eva, a wide-eyed ingenue, persistently curious. She tells people she is an actor, but her friend Olka (Isabelle Stoffel) is skeptical. After all, Eva behaves modestly, and that’s not what people expect of an actor. She also tells people that she’s renting the apartment from a friend, but we know that isn’t the case. She observes a tourist, also a young woman who is traveling alone. She sees the tourist journaling, so she starts journaling. She sees the tourist cuddling with a man under the stars, so she goes out and flirts. She’s plucky and optimistic, graceful even when she feels embarrassed, like when she pursues Agos (Vito Sanz), who initially brushes her off.

Toward the end, Eva makes some choices and says some things that seem out of character for the person we’ve spent nearly two hours with. I speculate whether they’re the creation of the director or the star, and I think it’s the former. Ultimately, these missteps are brief. Characters wax poetic about family, regret, art, faith and philosophy in a way that’s never pretentious. The noise and music of summer festivals acts as the film’s score. There’s a mystery behind who Eva is outside of this trip, why she decided to take the time off. There’s certainly sadness there, but there is nothing but joy in her time in Madrid. The August Virgin is a sweet film, a love letter to summer and solitude.

It is available in virtual theaters August 21st. You can check the film’s website for local theaters you can support.