Isa should be happy. She is young, she has started working in an advertising company and the open relationship that she maintains with her boyfriend seems to be going well. But Isa is dissatisfied. There is always a rival at work that she does better, she has not just succeeded in social networks and her boy leaves her when she refuses to stop having sex with other people. After her breakup, Isa returns to her mother’s house with whom she confronts and begins a drift to nowhere. Greta Fernández gives life to that Isa that she should be happy, but she suffers the crisis of the 20 in Unicorns, the new film by Àlex Lora, which has been presented today in the official section of the Malaga Festival.
How is it possible for someone to have a midlife crisis when they have their whole life ahead of them? Lora explains that “there is great social pressure on women, which is amplified in a toxic way with social networks and causes us to compare ourselves all day.” And not only that, because “capitalism requires us to constantly create, invent another self, seek perfection and, many times, leads us to neglect our children until the bomb explodes.” “It is not the entire generation, but sometimes absolute freedom generates existential damage that causes concern and sadness for everything that is desired and cannot be had,” reflects the director of Unicornios in an interview with La Vanguardia.
For Fernández, “Isa is lost. I have not experienced that situation because I found my vocation very young and I have always known what I wanted to do, I am lucky, but I have friends who have suffered from this problem.” Sometimes young people who suffer from these anxiety crises do not even know what is happening to them and something like this happens to the protagonist of Unicorns: “She does not realize that she is so lost. She is going miles, she needs to stop a bit and find a way to feel better, but that requires a humility and willpower that she doesn’t have,” adds the actress.
She doesn’t have too good vibes either, because Isa is envious, selfish and quite unpleasant and, far from seeking the support of her mother or her friends, she distances herself from the people who care for her. Lora, who is adapting a script signed by Pilar Palomero and María Mínguez, is well aware that her character will not win a popularity award, but that is something the director is very aware of “because female characters with these characteristics are needed, selfish, rude and even bad at humanizing them and that we stop judging them, because when that happens with men they are always forgiven”.
Fernández makes excuses for her character a bit: “It’s not that Isa doesn’t know how to behave, nor are social networks her problem. Unicorns is a very ambitious film in that sense, because it doesn’t reduce the problem to networks and sex. The relationship of Isa with the things she admires in envy, jealousy and anger and if you scratch a little more there is something else, an emotional lack. And she knows it”, says the protagonist of the film.
Is it perhaps that open relationship that gives him the freedom to sleep with whoever he wants without having to explain himself or feel guilty that against all odds causes Isa’s unhappiness? Fernández believes that there is no concrete answer to this dilemma: “I do not defend either open or monogamous relationships, because both must be worked on a lot. When something does not work, you have to let it go and always keep in mind that individuality should not be lost” . Lora concludes that “there is no perfect formula, everyone must find the one that works for them, but in all relationships, compromises and negotiations must be sought.”
