27 Nights 2025 Movie Review
Semi-biographical films about super-rich senior citizens who must defend themselves against attempts to incapacitate them by their abusive daughters seem to strike a chord. If not with audiences, then at least with festival curators and directors like Daniel Hendler ( Norberto apenas tarde ). The Argentine filmmaker opens the San Sebastián competition with an elitist episode bearing striking similarities to Thierry Klifa ‘s The Richest Woman in the World . Based on the Bettencourt affair, the moral satire—sometimes rather pretentiously dubbed a “psycho-thriller”—screened out of competition at Cannes earlier this year.
This section would also be more appropriate for Hendler’s established anecdote. Instead of Isabelle Huppert in the lead role, it stars Marilú Marini ( The Island of Lemon Blossoms ). She plays the role of the funny and, judging by some awkward ambiguities, lascivious widow Martha Hoffmann with skill, but without any psychological nuance. The wealthy collector of questionable phallic “art” objects and patron of similarly dubious artists, in the opinion of her daughters ( Carla Peterson , Medianeras , Paula Grinszpan , Wild Tales ), distributes her fortune too freely. That her deceitful relatives refuse to share the expected inheritance is as obvious as the protagonist’s sanity.
Her case could exemplify the perversion and corruption of the psychiatric system. But Hendler is just as unconcerned with the misogynistic moralism and sadistic sexism that historically reduced the arbitrary disenfranchisement of women to an administrative formality as he is with the entanglement of psychiatry with colonialism, racism, ableism, and classism. Instead, the burlesque biopic suggests that a white, wealthy, socially established hereditary elite is more likely to be threatened with psychiatric internment. Not only does the affected staging romanticize the brutal reality of such a stay as a banal discussion, it also mocks long-term inmates and mentally ill individuals.
Instead of demonstrating the medical, social, and legal mechanisms of psychiatric detention, Hendler delights in literally staging himself as Martha’s—according to the dialogue’s implication, supposedly “sexy”—forensic expert and ally. The Harold and Maude dynamic between the generational representatives, who are opposed in temperament and verve, is as derivative as the antiquated joke about Martha’s sexuality. The stuffy mockery of sexually active older people undermines the self-satisfied, pseudo-tolerance of the stereotypical story. The latter indirectly legitimizes the psychiatric apparatus, which profits far more from locking away the privileged protagonist than her family.
It’s hard to imagine that the true legal case that inspired Argentinian author Nataia Zito’s 2021 book would be as tedious as Daniel Hendler’s trivial dramedy. It ignores the psychopathological concepts, societal biases, and institutional structures that make involuntary institutionalization possible in favor of a specious appeal against age discrimination. The director and screenwriter prefers to place himself at the center of the story as the secret protagonist rather than create a credible character portrayal of his protagonist. The artificial studio settings and interchangeable aesthetics underscore the staidness of this tenuous elite escapade.
