Want gets to the point. The first of its four chapters puts the camera in the privacy of a couple’s bed to then jump to the moment in which a woman, Miren, prepares to denounce her husband for sexual abuse that has continued over almost three decades. after which a long reflection is sensed. She is, by all accounts, a woman of good social standing and she appears serene, calm, and confident. She takes advantage of the fact that he is on a work trip to go to the police station and, immediately afterward, pick up her things and leave. That’s the plan. But while she’s packing her suitcase, he returns home for a last-minute change of plans. Then everything becomes tension, haste, overwhelm.
Only a few minutes have passed and the series has already laid the foundations for what it wants to tell. Shortly after, the earthquake that this decision represents reaches the children of the couple, two adults who are forced to rethink everything they have experienced at home. Since it premiered at the San Sebastián festival, Wantthe first series by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa (Five little wolves)accumulates praise, and rightly so. Here we break down five reasons why any viewer should watch the series that Movistar Plus+ premieres this Thursday the 17th.
Nagore Aranburu
Not just her, but especially her. With her frightened look, her sobriety, her dignity and her high head, sometimes accompanied by a slight tremor in her voice the few times she breaks the silence, the actress of Loreak he gets Miren’s character to speak without having to say anything. Aranburu is capable of giving strength and fragility to a woman in whom anyone can identify, or recognize other women around her, even though not everyone moves in those social circles. Next to the protagonist is a great Pedro Casablanc, who does not need to exaggerate gestures or raise his voice too much for anyone to understand what he is talking about. The couple’s children, played with solvency by Iván Pellicer and Miguel Bernardeau, are the collateral damage of this story, and their lives will also be affected in different ways by their mother’s decision.
Intimacy, in the foreground
Want You don’t need to show so that everything is clear. He prefers subtlety, simplicity, delicacy, that the viewer uses his intelligence. In Want there is no flashbacks that show the attacks that Miren denounces, but with his story in the trial, which is developed in the last chapters, no more is needed. The series sneaks into the privacy of a family without intruding on it. The viewer has the feeling of being witness to a tremendously intimate process. And although the point of view is hers, the opposite point of view and that of those around them is clearly exposed.
An issue at the center of the conversation
When the launch of this project was announced, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa told EL PAÍS why she was so attracted by the starting point that was put on the table: a woman denounces her husband for continuous rape. “From the research work we have done, I feel that external structures, cultural and social stories, change a little faster than the mental structures of the people who make them up. That’s really the complicated journey around consent and changing gender perspectives. Those mental structures, what we really feel, think, how uncomfortable we are with certain things… that is very slow to change.” The “important series” label is already worn out, so worn out that one would almost have to avoid series that are sold like that. But that this topic is talked about, that something that was previously locked behind the doors of so many homes is so clearly exposed on the screen, shows that mental structures are a little closer to making that change. What is not talked about does not exist, so let’s talk about it.
A mirror before society
The viewing of Want It is not simple, but it is not intended to be. Want It is an uncomfortable series that fires questions at point-blank range, invites you to position yourself and, above all, to rethink and look around. Because we not only talk about sexual violence, but also about economic dependence, isolation from family and friends, jealousy, and so many other everyday things that are scary. Seeing it in a mirror can be scary. Hence the discomfort and harshness of the series, which does not cushion the blow and shows it naturally, like life itself.
Television that treats the viewer as an adult
In times of superheroes, of franchises, of blockbusters popcorn fans (long live entertainment, but not everything can be “heehee haha”), it is not so common to find series that speak to the viewer from maturity. Want It is not intended to indoctrinate, only to show a silenced reality. Through the family drama crossed at times with the judicial one, Ruiz de Azúa’s series manifests itself as one of the great Spanish fictions of the year and it does so without frills, without fuss. He does it with the dignity and serenity with which Miren enters the police station and the court to tell his story.
