'Romería' (★★★★✩), 'The Conjuring: The Last Rite', '13 Days, 13 Nights' and other new releases this week

These are the new releases coming to the big screen this Friday, September 5:

Ratings

★★★★★ masterpiece ★★★★ very good ★★★ good ★★ average

Romería ★★★★✩Directed by: Carla SimónCast by: Llúcia Garcia, Mitch, Tristán Ulloa, Miryam GallegoProduction: Spain-Germany, 2025 (115 minutes) Drama Voyage of discovery

By Jordi Batlle Caminal

Pilgrimage could be titled Summer 2004 , the season and year in which the story takes place. It's the year in which little Frida from Summer 1993 (now called Marina and grown up, but both Marina and Frida are the same person: Carla Simón herself) travels to Galicia, specifically to Vigo, ostensibly to obtain a certificate that will allow her to access a film student scholarship, although in reality it's a journey of discovery of her roots, of investigation into her past and that of her parents, who lived there. Her mother's diary, written throughout the 1980s, accompanies her and is the voiceover we hear from time to time. Marina (the Igualada debutante Llúcia Garcia, a resoundingly good choice) already knows many things about her parents. She knows that they died, not long apart, of AIDS. But there are still quite a few unknowns to be deciphered.

Simón travels to Vigo as Rossellini traveled to Stromboli: with one eye on fiction, on his autobiographical fiction, and the other on the documentary record: the festivals that pay homage to the sea, with their hymns and flowers, so authentic. Authenticity is also exuded, as in Estiu 1993 and Alcarràs , in the sequences where the members of Marina's paternal family who take her in (grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc.) meet, mingle, exchange impressions, or argue. Or in a moment as simple as the scene in which sardines are grilled on the beach, on the sand: the aroma reaches the audience and whets the appetite as if they were pages written by Josep Pla. Carla Simón knows—and this is her third feature film that demonstrates it—how to awaken our five senses with an almost miraculous naturalness.

The drift of the final section is a risky choice, as it disrupts the breathing and harmony Romería had enjoyed until then and reveals a certain tonal dyslexia. It's meant to evoke, in a dreamlike tone, the days of drug excess and the dissolute life of the protagonist's parents (and, by extension, of an entire generation still under the effects of the hippie utopia). These are undoubtedly vibrant, intense, and penetrating scenes, and the filmmaker had every right in the world (and a vital need) to film them, but we're left wondering whether we needed them.

The Conjuring: The Last Rite★★✩✩✩Directed by: Michael ChavesCast by: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Mia TomlinsonProduction: USA 2025. 135 m. Horror It was not necessary

By Salvador Llopart

They say it's the final installment in The Warren Files, that series of more or less gentle horror films—gentle compared to Saw, for example—inspired by the supposedly true stories of the married couple Ed and Lorraine Warren, famous American paranormal investigators; famous, of course, among people interested in such matters.

The final installment? Well, they could have saved that one, to be honest.

The Conjuring: The Last Rite turns out to be a poor ending; a tedious, repetitive, bland conclusion to the saga that best defined what we might call the Warrenverse: a dozen or so intertwined titles, running since 2013, with the label "the real" as an excuse. In which atmospheric horror relies on a gothic, haunted house atmosphere, complemented by the occasional ill-timed scare. With the new installment, we are faced with a portrait of an exhausted family, the Warrens, exhausted like the saga itself. Neither the restlessness nor the silences, so expected and hackneyed, nor the axe blow accompanied by a scream, hold up. Fatigue, yes; franchise fatigue. The end of the Warrens' cozy horror, in which only Vera Farmiga (Lorraine), as the best part of the film, shines brightly.

It seems like this last rite will never end: it drags on, with the tension limited to just two or three scenes, if we're being generous. A farewell, in short, for the saga's unrepentant nostalgics. Michael Chaves, the director, does a seasoned, dignified job, leaning toward melancholy, with very long family scenes. Does it all end? If we consider that the producer is James Wan, the creator of the aforementioned Saw series, perhaps not. Wan isn't one to let franchises slip away as long as they're profitable, and this one certainly is. I feel like this is a new beginning in which the "real" will give way to heightened fiction. The final installment? No way. There will be more. Definitely.

Talent ★★★✩✩Directed by: Polo MenárguezCast by: Ester Expósito, Mirela Balic, Pedro CasablancProduction: Spain, 2025. 103 m. Rare atmosphere

By S. Llopart

Talent has the ability to draw us into a rarefied atmosphere where ethical principles are diluted by the power of money. Despite his youthful appearance, he resolutely embarks on the tortuous path of moral degradation toward darkness. One can clearly see the habitual obsession of Arthur Schnitzler, the late 19th-century Viennese author whose work, Mademoiselle Elsa, is the basis for this film written by director Polo Menárguez and Fernando León de Aranoa. I'd bet both have watched Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999) very carefully.

13 Days, 13 Nights ★★★✩✩Directed by: Martin BourboulonCast by: Roschdy Zem, Lyna Khoudri, Sidse Babett KnudsenProduction: France, 2025 (111 minutes) Thriller Escape from Kabul

By Philipp Engel

The stellar performances of the charismatic Roschdy Zem and the always refreshing Lyna Khoudri (Sidse Babett Knudsen, who is more out of place) elevate an otherwise rather prosaic thriller centered around the evacuation of the French embassy during the recent fall of Kabul. While the setting, the movement of the frightened masses, and the brutal ISIS attacks are well-executed, Bourbolon doesn't quite know how to manage tension and suspense, resulting in a film that lacks emotion.

Stalked ★★✩✩✩Directed by: Anne Le NyCast by: Omar Sy, Elodie Bouchez, Vanessa Paradis, José GarcíaProduction: France, 2024 (111 minutes) Dramatic thriller The stupidity of jealousy

By P. Engel

It's well known that jealousy is not a good advisor. Hence, Elodie Bouchez falls into the clutches of her manipulative superior (José García). But what could have been an interesting psychological thriller in the workplace starts off badly when the protagonist's loving husband (Omar Sy) has to rescue her from a very basic problem. This means that, throughout the film, we are haunted by the question of whether it all comes down to a question of IQ, which is murky and uncomfortable.

April ★★★✩✩Director: Dea KulumbegashviliInterpreters: Ia Sukhitashvili, Kakha KintsurashviliProduction: Georgia, 2024 (134 minutes) Drama Abortion on rubber

By P. Engel

A radical staging—square screen, slow pace, hypnotic shots—flirts with experimentation, documentary, and performance to tell the story of a doctor who performs clandestine abortions, transformed into a kind of ghostly angel of death who compensates for her solitary existence with sordid exchanges. The feeling of boredom it leaves us with reminds us that perhaps we've seen too many films about a right that shouldn't generate debate. No woman goes through that for pleasure.

What I Learned from My Penguin ★★✩✩✩Directed by: Peter CattaneoCast by: Steve Coogan, Jonathan PryceProduction: Great Britain-Spain, 2024 (111 minutes) Comedy A very special friend

By J. Batlle

Set in the turbulent Argentina of 1976, this comedy with dramatic stumbles stars an English teacher at a select school who saves a penguin on the beach, is forced to keep it, and begins to grow fond of it. It's a dull and bland film with pretensions of social commentary. It was a thousand times better, although at first it seemed silly, than My Friend the Penguin : the relationship between Jean Reno and his animal had all the emotion and realism that Coogan's and his own lack.