CURRENTS, THE

(director/writer: Milagros Mumenthaler; cinematographer: Gabriel Sandru; editor: Gion-Reto Killias; cast: Isabel Aimé González Sola (Lina), Esteban Bigliardi (Pedro), Emma Fayo Duerte (Sofia)), Claudia Sánchez (Ines), Ernestina Gatti (Julia), Jazmín Carballo (Amalia, Lina’s hair stylist friend), Patricia Mouzo (Pilar), Susana Saulquin (Irma); Runtime: 104; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Eugenia Mumenthaler, Violeta Bava, Rosa Martínez Rivero, David Epiney; Alina Film; 2026-Argentina/ Switzerland-in Spanish with English subtitles)

“On point as a memorable character study.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
 
The existential, psychological, and sensual arthouse film from Swiss-Argentine female director Milagros Mumenthaler (“Back to Stay”) on mental illness is on point as a memorable character study, even if it refuses to explain itself and leaves us with an uneven screenplay. It follows a famous Argentine fashion stylist trying to overcome a case of estrangement, but who never gets it together.

The 34-year-old Lina (Isabel Aimé González Sola) seems to see her life in Buenos Aires as if she was a stranger in her own body. Living an upper-middle-class life with her doting husband (Esteban Bigliardi) and precious 5-year-old daughter (Emma Fayo Duerte), she can’t escape from her self-inflicted anxiety and need for withdrawal. After receiving for her work a trophy award in Geneva she could care less about, she throws it in the bathroom trash after the ceremony, and then topples off a nearby bridge in a failed suicide attempt. She comes out of it with a water phobia (no longer bathing but still considers water as a means of cleansing).

Filled with anguish she becomes more withdrawn, as she carries out her work and family responsibilities while back in Buenos Aires. She looks weirdly upon her young assistant (Ernestina Gatti) and reunites with her estranged childhood friend (Jazmín Carballo), now a hair stylist, trying to recall happier days by again calling herself Cata. Her full name is Catalina, but she now calls herself Lina.

Lina takes us for a ride along with her embodiment. It’s sort of as if she was a character in one of Virginia Woolf’s stories or a character in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.” Sola gives a superb moving performance, which makes the film work even when it gets sidetracked.

It played at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

REVIEWED ON 11/6/2026  GRADE: B+
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