Maspalomas: A great melodrama, as raw as it is sensitive (review)

After years of coming to terms with his homosexuality, a septuagenarian finds himself forced to reconnect with his old life following a stroke. A film about the poorly extinguished fires of prejudice that still surround homosexuality

Maspamolas, which gives its title to the new film by Aitor Arregi-José Mari Goenaga (A Secret Life), multi-nominated at the last Goyas (from which he left with the more than deserved best actor prize for Jose Ramón Soroiz), is a small town in the Canary Islands known as a cruising spot popular with the homosexual community. A true paradise on Earth for Vicente, a septuagenarian who retired there to make up for lost time. These long years when this father was unable to come to terms with being gay before cutting ties with his family and in particular his daughter whom he then stopped seeing. At 76 years old, his body continues to exult and nothing seems to be able to darken what he had probably never even dared to dream of. Until the day when the carefree attitude suddenly comes to an end after a stroke during… a threesome with her partner and a passing lover. Suddenly, Vicente looks older than his age and finds himself placed by his daughter in a rest home from which he will then have only one obsession: to escape.

Beginning in a very crude manner in an atmosphere reminiscent of Guiraudie’s L’Inconnu du lac, Maspalomas then turns into an intimate melodrama. The Arregi-Goenaga duo shines as much in filming exultant bodies – something extremely rare on the big screen when it comes to the sexuality of the elderly – as in the harsh face-to-face encounters between a father and a daughter who has never recovered from leaving home. And he manages to resonate the violence felt by this man at finding himself once again locked in a closet from which he had freed himself and that experienced by his daughter who reproaches him for his devastating selfishness. A film as raw as it is delicate which, just like the recent Jim Queen, tells of the still poorly extinguished fires of prejudices and taboos which continue to surround homosexuality

By José Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi. With José Ramon Sorolz, Nagore Aranburu, Kandido Uranga… Duration: 1h55. Released June 24, 2026