Solo Mia (review)

We've seen this story many times before, though rarely in such harrowing fashion, or with subtitles: Neandethal husband wants the wifey barefoot and pregnant. He hits; she cries; he apolgizes; she forgives him. Repeat in a vicious cycle. Intense and dark, the film -- which was nominated for four Goyas, Spain's Oscar, including ones for leads Sergi Lopez (Jet Lag) and Paz Vera -- eschews melodrama, intercutting agonizing scenes of his rage and her submission with hints of her torturing him. But even the aptness and the poetic justice of the finale and the powerful depth of Lopez and Vera's performances can't up the freshness factor enough to make this worthwhile.