Argentine film that has just debuted on Netflix is ​​a small diamond of 2025 cinema

An elderly woman is hospitalized by decision of her daughters and a judicial expert is given days to say whether there is an illness or just a way of living that the family dislikes. In “27 Nights”, Daniel Hendler directs and acts as the expert Leandro Casares, while Marilú Marini plays Martha Hoffman, the focus of the process. The cast also includes Humberto Tortonese, Julieta Zylberberg, Paula Grinszpan and Carla Peterson. The script is based on the book “Veintisiete noches”, by Natalia Zito (Galerna, 2021), inspired by a real case, and transforms a private litigation into a public investigation, with consequences that go beyond a medical record.

The central conflict is stated without mystery: Casares’ opinion will decide whether Martha remains in custody or recovers her daily life. The expert’s goal seems simple on paper, but each step changes risk and time. When daughters report expenses and behaviors considered inappropriate, the request for guardianship gains strength. When Martha responds accurately about dates, people and commitments, the expert needs to review hypotheses and open new fronts for checking. Nothing comes into play without consequence: a report changes the scope of the evaluation, a documentary detail adjusts the dramatic clock, a silence replaces a doubt that seemed resolved.

The 27-night deadline acts as an obstacle and a driving force. The count guides schedules, interviews and exam requests, narrows verification windows and imposes choices on what to prioritize. Each night ended without a complete answer increases the weight of future decisions. At the same time, the clinic imposes rules that limit Martha’s autonomy, and these rules permeate the investigation with practical effects. When a protocol restricts visits, the possibility of free observation decreases. When a previous report supports a hasty diagnosis, the chance of an institutional error being repeated increases.

Martha, in turn, does not present herself as an ethereal enigma. She acts, provokes, retreats, calculates. When cooperating and providing verifiable data, it shifts the expert’s objective from confirming a hypothesis to testing the consistency of the environment that surrounds it. When he confesses to small lies, he forces Casares to separate strategy from confusion. By managing her own image, she seeks to regain power over everyday life, and this search has a cost: each gesture collects records and generates a procedural reaction, often unfavorable.

The daughters form an interested and contradictory force. At meetings and hearings, they bring extracts, letters from an employee and reports from the neighborhood, which strengthens the request for protection. At the same time, they let old hurts and disputes escape that reorient the reading of the situation. When a sister insists on protecting her heritage, her motivation takes on a patrimonial tone. When the other invokes intimate episodes, the case approaches morality and behavior control. The expert needs to separate legitimate care from surveillance, always with a deadline.

Supporters make up the institutional environment. A doctor from the clinic supports the hospitalization with technical terms, a lawyer guides the daughters, employees describe routines in the room and in the hallway. Each statement not only informs, but rewrites Casares’ to-do list. Faced with a disputed signature, he needs to confirm authentication. When you find discrepancies between exams, you need to ask for a retest. The progress includes visits to Martha’s residence, reconstructions of events mentioned in the process and verification of testimonies, with a direct impact on the character’s future.

Hendler’s staging and acting choices affect focus and timing. In interviews, the camera focuses on faces and allows hesitations and self-corrections to change the understanding of sanity and autonomy. In moments of document review, cuts compress days and highlight the countdown, signaling that time weighs more than the rhetoric of the parties. Sounds of warnings, footsteps and doors reinforce Martha’s condition as a person in custody, which alters the reading of each response she gives, as her speech begins to carry the weight of someone who depends on an opinion.

Marilú Marini constructs Martha with a calculated gesture that shifts meanings. In dry answers, she dismantles narratives of decadence and forces the expert to verify the context of what was said about her. In long pauses, after invasive questions, he suggests calculation and preservation of intimacy, which keeps the debate about capacity and will open. Hendler, like Casares, embraces restraint and meticulous attention to detail. By repeating a question and adjusting the order of information, it indicates prudence and caution against hasty inferences, a strategy that increases the credibility of the report before the judge who will read it.

Dialogues serve to collect data and compare versions. In the evaluation booth, a question about dates reconstitutes chronologies that affect the accusation of mental confusion. In conversation with employees, a routine detail dismantles the idea of ​​imminent danger attributed to Martha. In a meeting with the daughters, a misplaced legal term announces that the process includes ambitions that are not limited to health. When someone contradicts themselves, the contradiction does not remain as an ornament, it becomes a clue that generates next action.

Dramatic progression occurs through legible and verifiable turns. An old document appears that defies the most recent reports, messages appear that indicate a dispute over assets, an episode appears at the clinic that puts the institution in check. Faced with each new piece, Casares needs to decide whether to expand the investigation, request independent expertise or directly confront the party that provided the information. With each choice, the margin for error narrows, and the responsibility for Martha’s destiny grows proportionately.

The moment of greatest pressure is when writing and delivering the opinion. The signed text defines the judge’s next act and alters Martha’s next morning. The sequence establishes three elements at play, without revealing the resolution: concrete risk of prolonging a deprivation of liberty, real possibility of discharge with family consequences and the prospect of State liability for any failure. The film ends the arc at the moment a signature transforms facts into a decision, leaving open the public debate that the case calls for.

Comparisons help to size the narrative strategy. Just like in “Ela” and “A Filha Perdida”, titles that assume intimate conflict with clear social effects, “27 Nights” starts from a family nucleus to discuss institutional mediations. The difference is the focus on procedure, with scenes that always shift objective, risk or time. Nothing exists to illustrate an abstract theme. Each step has a function, each document changes the position of the pieces, each speech is measured accordingly.

Without relying on outbursts or moralizing speeches, “27 Nights” is based on facts and character choices. The tension arises from deadlines, protocols and verifiable decisions, and the film’s interest lies in what happens when a life becomes the object of a lawsuit. It premiered on September 19, 2025 at the San Sebastián Festival. The narrative ends at the moment when responsibility leaves the family circle and becomes an administrative act, keeping open the question that supports each decision: who bears the cost of making a mistake when deciding about another person’s freedom?