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A happy Spanish family consisting of Vera (Andrian Ugarte), her husband David (Alvaro Morte) and little daughter Gloria. They moved into a new house that the owners wanted to sell as soon as possible and are starting to settle down. At some point, when David was on a business trip, a serious thunderstorm began. Vera, unpacking things, finds an old TV and a video camera with a cassette in the closet. On a cassette recorded on the day the Berlin Wall fell, namely twenty-five years ago, on November 9, 1989, twelve-year-old teenager Nico Lasarte (Julio Boigas-Couto) plays a song on the guitar for his mother.

Vera knows what kind of boy this is. He lived in this house and died that day after witnessing a murder in a neighbor’s house. Thanks to a strong thunderstorm that rages now and raged on that day twenty-five years ago, a wormhole occurred in time: Vera contacted the boy through the old TV and warned him.

Immediately after this happened, Vera woke up in the hospital where she works, lying in a hospital bed – as it turned out, she just lay down there for a little sleep. Vera is told that they are waiting for her in the operating room, and she thinks that, as usual, she will assist Dr. Fell: Vera herself was supposed to become a surgeon, but when Gloria was born, she decided to devote herself to her family and left her education.

However, it turns out that it is she, Vera, who must operate. She changed the course of the past, saved the boy, but now everything is wrong in her world. Vera is the leading surgeon of the clinic. She is not married. David is unfamiliar with her, but the worst thing is that in this world she does not have a daughter, Gloria.

And Vera is trying to figure out how she can get her old life back.

***

There are plenty of films about time loops and how changing the past affects the future. Some films are about looping in some kind of time loop (“Groundhog Day”, “Edge of Tomorrow”, “Source Code”), others deal with several different long loops (“Time Loop”, “Radio Wave”, “Butterfly Effect” ). And, accordingly, these films are very, very different. Some have a well-thought-out and logical script (“Time Loop” is especially good), others abound with nightmarish plot absurdities (here, of course, the champion is “Radio Wave”).

What do we have in this case? “During a Thunderstorm” was shot by the famous Spanish director Oriol Paolo, the creator of such detective crime thrillers as “The Body” and “The Invisible Guest”. These pictures showed that Paolo knows how to famously twist the intrigue, his pictures are very exciting, and the scripts that the director himself writes are well thought out from the point of view of the logic of what is happening.

It is interesting how genres change with this director, which in fact remain unchanged. “The Body” is a famously twisted and multi-layered detective thriller. “The Invisible Guest” is an even more famously twisted and even more multi-layered crime thriller, where the action unwinds very gradually and the veil that distorts the essence is removed layer by layer in front of the audience, and only by the end you find out what really happened there. Plus there are some interesting plot twists that Paolo is great at.

“During a Thunderstorm” is already kind of fantastic, but in fact the time loop is just a means for the creator of the picture to tell a fascinating story that has several variations, and not all of them are obvious.

It has a detective story, and elements of a thriller, and psychology, and romance. And, as usual, there are sharp plot twists, some of which are deliberately transparent, but others will manage to surprise you.

Andriana Ugarte played Vera, in my opinion, more than worthy. Very emotional, but without theatricality, she looked natural and touching. It was also interesting to see which option Vera would choose and how she would act when faced with a very serious psychological dilemma.

Alvaro Morte – “Professor” from the wonderful Spanish series “Paper House” – played David here. And it was very unusual to see him without glasses. He played well, but his role here is small.

Well, a very interesting role is played by Chino Darina, who played Inspector Leira, whom Vera turns to when she realizes that she is in a world completely alien to her.

Further, it probably does not make sense to discuss anything, so as not to spoil the impression of those who have not yet seen this picture, and, in my opinion, it really deserves viewing. Original, captivating, excellently choreographed and well-acted.

I really liked the previous two films of this director, and this one, in my opinion, is the best of the three.

Now about the translation. There are two options on the web. Professional polyphonic voiceover and amateur polyphonic voiceover. I selectively listened to both. It’s better not to watch with an amateur version (some kind of Alpha Project): everything seems to be decent with the translation, but here the text is simple, but the voice acting, in my opinion, is very bad. Vera was especially terribly voiced: a completely inappropriate voice, an unpleasant timbre and a complete failure in emotions – greatly spoils the impression, keep in mind. But the professional voiceover (HDRezka Studio) is very decent, and just the voice acting of Vera is done as it should: the voice is more or less similar, and the manner, and emotions.

 

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Directed by: Oriol Paolo Cast: Clara Segura, Alvaro Morte, Aina Clotet, Adriana Ugarte, Chino Darin, Javier Gutierrez, Nora Navas, Miquel Fernandez, Mima Riera, Albert Perez, Julio Boigas-Couto

 

Fantastic thriller, Spain, 2018, 128 min.