One of the fascinating side effects of film criticism over the past 18-months has been viewing films through the lens of living life under lockdown, which has given many films an unintentional extra dimension that they were never designed to have. Rosa’s Wedding is one such film, a comedy/drama by Spanish filmmaker Icíar Bollaín about breaking away from the monotony and demands of daily life to start afresh somewhere new. Living in Valencia on the coast of Spain, Rosa (Candela Peña) is a woman in her mid 40s whose entire existence has become tethered to looking after the needs of others: her aging father, her siblings who are on the edge of their own midlife crises, her daughter who is effectively raising twins by herself, her boyfriend, her employer, and various friends and neighbours. In an attempt to cling onto what sense of her identity she may still have left, Rosa suddenly moves to her childhood town of Benicassim where she plans to reopen her deceased mother’s old dressmaking workshop. She also decides it is time to marry. To marry herself.
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CINEMA AUTOPSY 