‘Maledictions’ Review: Daniel Burman’s Political Chessboard (Netflix)

Returning once again to the murky world of political deals and hidden agendas—territory she had already explored in The Kingdom—Claudia Piñeiro wrote Las maldiciones, a story that weaves together the lives of politicians, advisers, secretaries and candidates in a plot where the personal and the political constantly overlap. Substantially reshaped for its screen adaptation, the version created by Daniel Burman (Lost Embrace) has the structure of a series but the rhythm and focus of a feature film. Three forty-minute episodes add up to the length of a traditional movie, and in many ways it makes more sense to view it that way.

There is, of course, some logic to its division. The second episode takes place in the past, serving as an extended flashback that clarifies much of what drives the story. But beyond that, Maledictions unfolds like a film—or, with its concentration and compactness, what used to be called a TV movie. Watching it, one might even suspect it’s setting up a first season of a longer series, yet narratively it closes at the same point as the novel. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t continue: if audiences respond, Governor Fernando Rovira’s misadventures could easily be stretched further.

Leonardo Sbaraglia plays Rovira —still carrying traces of the northern accent he used when portraying Carlos Menem—, an Argentine provincial governor determined to stop Congress from passing a law that would prevent him from exploiting local lithium reserves. He’s “supported” in this effort by foreign corporations eager to profit, and by his own mother, played with steely force by Alejandra Flechner, a kind of provincial Lady Macbeth who pulls strings while her son hesitates.

All plans collapse when Rovira’s twelve-year-old daughter, Zoe (Francesca Varela), vanishes. She is last seen in the car of Román Sabaté (Gustavo Bassani), Rovira’s right-hand man, who then stops answering calls. Suspicion grows, and before long it becomes clear that Román is holding her captive to blackmail his boss into backing the law. Rovira is faced with an impossible choice: yield to the pressure, hunt down the kidnapper, or stay the course. But as the story unravels, it becomes clear the kidnapping is only the surface of a deeper web.

The second episode jumps back twelve years, to the moment Sabaté first joined Rovira’s team, then still married to Lucrecia (Monna Antonopoulos). What happens in that period is crucial to understanding the present, since it reveals how politics and private life became dangerously entangled. Returning to the present, the tension of the kidnapping escalates alongside backroom negotiations, with the audience now aware of the hidden motives complicating every move.

Among the key changes from Piñeiro’s novel—which revolved around the fact that no Buenos Aires governor had ever become president and the drastic measures proposed to change that—Las maldiciones shifts to another province and another political battleground, focusing instead on the urgent issue of reckless resource exploitation. At heart, though, it remains a story about secrets, lies, betrayals and the disposable way political elites treat those who work for them.

Straightforward and uncluttered, without unnecessary twists—many subplots and characters from the book have been dropped—the series directed by Burman and Martín Hodara is not, especially in today’s feverish political climate, particularly incendiary. But it does emphasize the ruling class’s constant manipulations, serving interests far removed from the real needs of the people, no matter how often they pretend otherwise. The concentrated cast—which also features brief but striking appearances by Osmar Núñez, César Bordón, María Ucedo and Nazareno Casero—adds dramatic heft, while the current political atmosphere gives the whole project an extra charge.