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Romería
Movie

Romería

2025 • Unknown

Woke Score
3
out of 10

Plot

Marina, 18, orphaned at a young age, must travel to Spain’s Atlantic coast to obtain a signature for a scholarship application from the paternal grandparents she has never met. She navigates a sea of new aunts, uncles, and cousins, uncertain whether she will be embraced or met with resistance. Stirring long-buried emotions, reviving tenderness, and uncovering unspoken wounds tied to the past, Marina pieces together the fragmented and often contradictory memories of the parents she barely remembers.

Overall Series Review

Romería is an introspective, semi-autobiographical Spanish drama about 18-year-old Marina's journey to the Atlantic coast of Spain to meet her estranged paternal family and obtain documents for a scholarship. The administrative task quickly evolves into a personal 'pilgrimage' to piece together the life and death of her parents, who passed away from AIDS contracted through heroin addiction in the 1980s. The film centers on the intergenerational conflict created by the older family's shame, secrecy, and attempts to bury the painful truth. Marina finds resistance from her grandparents, who represent a repressive past and try to push her away with money, but she is met with unexpected warmth and support from her aunts, uncles, and cousins. The narrative utilizes a flashback and magical realism sequence, guided by her mother's diary, to contrast the passionate, rebellious lives of her parents with the silence and suppression of the contemporary family. It is a story focused on identity, memory, and the vital need for a new generation to reclaim their authentic, complex family history, rather than a political commentary.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics2/10

The central conflict is not based on race, class, or intersectional hierarchy. The focus is on the stigma of addiction and disease (AIDS) and the intergenerational trauma of family secrecy. The protagonist is judged by her connection to her family's truth, not her immutable characteristics.

Oikophobia4/10

The film contains a mild critique of the ancestors and the 'repressive, conservative society' of the older generation in Spain for their shame and cruel treatment of the father. However, the narrative's core is a 'pilgrimage' to reclaim a lost family history and roots, concluding with the younger generation embracing their heritage and creating closure, which counters a total civilizational self-hatred.

Feminism4/10

The lead, Marina, is a determined young woman on a solo, goal-driven quest to become a filmmaker. Her quest is guided by her mother's diary, centering the mother's perspective and giving the film a focus on a 'woman's journey.' While the lead is strong and active, there is no evidence of the 'Girl Boss' trope that requires male characters to be bumbling or toxic, as the extended family men are described as supportive.

LGBTQ+2/10

The subject of AIDS in the 1980s is present as a tragic historical fact of the parents' deaths, linked to heroin addiction. This is contextual and not a vehicle for contemporary 'Queer Theory' lecturing, deconstructing the nuclear family, or centering sexual identity as the most important trait. The central romantic relationship discussed is the male-female pairing of Marina's parents.

Anti-Theism2/10

The core of the conflict is secular: family secrets, shame, memory, and addiction. The title 'Romería' (pilgrimage) suggests a search for spiritual or profound meaning, even if secularized to a quest for personal truth. The reviews do not indicate any hostility toward religion or the framing of traditional faith as the root of evil.