There is no age for freedom

Daniel Hendler returned to the address with 27 nightsa drama with comedy overtones that addresses a real case and has Marilu Marini as a great protagonist. The film is based on the book of the same name by Natalia Zito y tells the story of a wealthy 83-year-old woman who was admitted to a neuropsychiatric hospital with an erroneous diagnosis.. His daughters—played by Carla Peterson y Paula Grinszpan— they decide to intern her to prevent her from spending her fortune, getting married or continuing to donate money and high-value belongings to her group of bohemian friends. But she is willing to fight for her freedom tooth and nail. This is how the expert who must evaluate her (Hendler) enters the scene, a man completely opposite to the protagonist, who will learn to live more freely thanks to the relationship he establishes with her.

Hendler’s film has two main axes: the conception of old age in society and the relativity of mental health parameters. Martha Hoffman, the protagonist of this story, is presented as an eccentric woman, which for many can be synonymous with madness, especially at a stage of life in which sex, parties and friendships are supposed to lose importance. Martha is far from the stereotype of the “granny”: she is libertine, she does what she wants with her money, she exploits her erotic capital, she drinks, she goes out to party and she is a key figure in the underground art of Buenos Aires.

Although Martha’s character may seem implausible at times, she is the most complex and interesting of all. While the daughters are constructed as a flat stereotype of misers and the expert is a fearful, loser and neurotic man, the protagonist develops multiple aspects: she is extreme in both her freedom and her coldness towards her daughters. Her friends are her brotherhood, but she also exercises a certain despotism with them and with her daughters, imposing her extravagant ways on the fearful expert, who will end up jumping into the void when learning from her.

27 nights presents a series of strengths: the first is Marini’s performance, followed by the reflective approach to the State’s intervention in the face of injustices linked to mental health, and finally, the questioning of the parameters of madness. Even so, it is a film that still has the Netflix seal, with a conventional narrative structure: absurd moments, distressing scenes, customs and even a predictable climax with a satisfactory resolution. That said, 27 nights It has great charm thanks to its characters and the disturbing true story that inspires it, establishing itself as one of the national productions of the year that is worth not missing..

27 nights is available on Netflix.