The new Spanish film Something is About to Happen focuses on Lucia, an ordinary woman leading an ordinary life until she’s fired from her 20-year IT job. Her father is dying, neighbors argue through the cheap walls of her apartment, a big black bird haunts her. Luci yearns for a richer life. She gets it in the form of a neighbor, a handsome actor named Calaf who lives above her and plays a recording of Puccini's opera Turandot. She takes a chance, knocks on his door, and is swept up into his world. Then, the next time she visits, another person is there. Calaf's left the apartment without a word.
Rather than being crushed, Lucia is optimistic. She buys a taxi and drives the city (Madrid). She dresses as the Chinese heroine of Puccini's opera. She's convinced that one day Calaf will enter her cab and they will be reunited.
Something is About to Happen is engrossing but perplexing. Director Antonio Méndez Esparza is known for the features Here and There (2012), Life and nothing more (2017), and the documentary Courtroom 3H (2020). Having written the screenplay with Clara Roquet he shows subtle control and maintains suspense. Mr. Esparza is served well by Zeltia Montes' propulsive string score, which propels the action by keeping us on edge.
But the best reason to see Something is About to Happen is to watch Malena Alterio as Lucia. Ms. Alterio offers an open-faced performance, confronting the world armed with a smile. Nothing phases her. She has a wonderful profile and a bubbly view of life: gray skies are gonna clear up. Lucia is reminiscent of Sally Hawkins in Mike Leigh's Happy Go Lucky: she is almost infuriatingly upbeat. But she is not naive. She flirts with and even occasionally beds her taxi riders, sometimes as an act of mercy, as with a man freshly diagnosed with cancer, sometimes to scratch a carnal itch. Eventually, a theater producer (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) comes into her cab, and then a scriptwriter (José Luis Torrijo), both of whom might know Calaf the actor (Rodrigo Poisón). The coincidences pile up, the narrative noose tightens, and Lucia begins to suspect their presence is not so much serendipitous as, well…scripted.
As watchable as it is, Something is About to Happen is both sophisticated and facile. The scenario is rife with symbols: the cab equals freedom, connection and caprice; the big black bird means death, the sequence of deaths lead to rebirth. The film is meant as a parable. But of what? What human behavior is it calling out? It's based on a book titled Let No One Sleep (Que Nadie Duerma), which points us in a whole other thematic direction, giving extra meaning to the nocturnal route of Lucia's taxi.
Something is About to Happen's resolution gives off a whiff of deus ex machina as if Mr. Esparza didn't know how to end it. Lucia turns mean. And, the parable turns from one of loss and love into one of betrayal and retribution. And, in place of smiles, there is blood.
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Something is About to Happen. Directed by Antonio Méndez Esparza. 2023. Spanish language with English subtitles. From Film Movement. 122 minutes.