Hesitancy Review: A Weirdly Charming Mix of Romance and Telephone Lines

Look, if you are hoping for some lost masterpiece of Spanish cinema, Hesitancy isn't really that. But if you have a soft spot for weirdly specific setups where people get stuck together in the wilderness, it is actually kind of charming. 🚗

People who love slow, silent-era vibes will dig the odd rhythm here. Anyone expecting a fast-paced thriller will probably get bored and turn it off after ten minutes.

The whole setup is pretty wild.

A girl escapes a nightclub raid—which is filmed with some surprisingly chaotic energy—and hides in the back of a random car. Then, boom. The car crashes.

Suddenly she is stuck with this engineer guy who is obsessed with building a telephone line.

It is such a weirdly specific job for a romantic lead. Like, instead of writing her poetry, he is just really passionate about poles and wires.

Rosita de Cabo plays the girl, and she has this incredibly expressive face that does about ninety percent of the heavy lifting. There is a quiet scene where she is trying to dry her wet coat by a fire, and the way she looks at him is just so raw and genuine.

Meanwhile, Modesto Cid and Ramón de Sentmenat look like they wandered in from two completely different movies. One is acting for the cheap seats, waving his arms around, while the other just stares blankly at the scenery.

It kind of reminds me of the disjointed acting styles you see in The Stain.

The outdoor shots of the telephone line construction actually look real, which is a nice touch. You can see actual dirt on the workers' faces.

It almost feels like a documentary about infrastructure that got interrupted by a romance plot.

There is this one shot where a donkey just walks into the frame and stands there for a solid ten seconds. Nobody acknowledges the donkey. It is just there, vibing.

I love little accidents like that in old movies. It makes the world feel alive in a way modern green screens can't match.

The pacing gets a bit sluggish in the middle when they start talking about the actual logistics of the telephone line. I do not really care about the budget of the wires, guys.

But the chemistry between the leads keeps it afloat, even when the script by Gisbert and Puche gets a bit... stiff.

It is not quite as artsy or daring as something like The Love of Zero. But it has this honest, working-class grit to it that you do not see very often.

Watch it if you are in the mood for something dusty, slightly clunky, but ultimately sweet.