‘Cometierra’ Review: A Young Woman’s Visions Expose the Violence Buried Beneath Everyday Life (Prime Video)

Between the Buenos Aires suburbs and the outskirts of Mexico City, there seem to be many differences—but maybe they’re not that many after all. The language shifts, the food changes, some customs vary, yet the underlying connections remain: shared experiences, routines, friendships, family bonds, and hard realities. Long before the absurd controversy over a sex scene that sparked outrage among people who clearly have nothing better to do with their lives, Cometierra had already made waves—first in Argentina’s literary scene, then internationally—thanks to its bold, original storytelling and, above all, to the raw, personal and visceral voice that author Dolores Reyes brought to it. Yes, it could be read as a story about a young woman who literally eats dirt to see visions of the dead or the missing. But it was also a portrait of a tense, fragile world—surrounded by violence (especially gender-based), death, friendship, sex, and daily life—captured with a realism rarely found in either literature or cinema.

Its move to a streaming series naturally required changes. Some were dictated by production constraints and the difficulties of filming in Argentina. That’s why, among other reasons, the increasingly international director and producer Daniel Burman chose to relocate the story to Mexico, with a fully local cast and a team of screenwriters—including several novelists—tasked with finding the right way to adapt both the setting and the format. The result—at least judging from the three episodes screened for the press—is a carefully crafted and well-told production that turns Aylin’s story (played by Lilith Curiel) into a mix of teen drama and supernatural thriller. These were already key elements in Reyes’s novel, though here they’re presented in a more conventional, platform-friendly style.

The episodes are short, direct, and to the point. They also diverge significantly from the source material—including that so-called “controversial” scene—so it makes little sense to judge the show by comparison. It works better as a complement or entry point to Reyes’s world. In this version, Aylin (whose name is never mentioned in the first-person novel) discovers her gift after a bullying incident at school. That’s when she realizes her teacher Ema (played by Roma’s Yalitza Aparicio), who has gone missing, is in danger. Her brother Walter (Roberto Aguilar) and a police officer named Ezequiel (Harold Torres) become involved, with Ezequiel gradually coming to believe in her visions. The series presents these visions in a hazy, dreamlike zone—bathed in blood-red tones and enhanced by subtle visual effects.

That first “case” (readers of the novel will know how it unfolds) sets the tone for what follows. Aylin wants to stop using her power but is soon sought out as a kind of detective–superhero hybrid, able to solve crimes through her eerie connection with the dead. The show’s present-day setting gives it a sharper, more procedural rhythm: Aylin helps in cases that can actually be solved, pushing the police to act. And since it delves into the painful terrain of femicides, it’s clear she’ll encounter enemies and forces determined to stop her.

The series and the novel differ greatly—that’s obvious from the start—but both keep their focus on the protagonist’s growing unease and emotional weight. Aylin is haunted by the experiences of those—mostly women—who have endured violence, usually at the hands of men. Cometierra (translated as Unburied in some markets) is firmly framed within contemporary feminist movements—with marches, school protests, and open discussions of gender violence—but Burman and his co-directors (Martín Hodara and Cris Gris) choose to center the story on the protagonist’s inner turmoil and the way she absorbs the social climate around her.

The show leans perhaps too heavily on certain genre conventions, loading almost every scene with songs by popular artists—from Natalia Lafourcade and Cazzu to Silvana Estrada, RENEE, Bizarrap, and Nicki Nicole, among many others—as if selling the soundtrack were one of its main goals. Flooding the narrative with hits ends up disrupting the somber mood the series tries to create. Cometierra works best when the original score (by Emiliano González del León and Leo Heiblum) takes precedence over the pop songs that spell out the emotions too literally. It’s a relatively minor flaw, but its persistence makes it hard to ignore.

A strong cast of young actors lends the show credibility and emotional weight. Burman—who got involved with the project long before its current wave of attention and controversy—experiments here in a register that blends urban magical realism with touches of supernatural horror. Far removed (in more ways than one) from Lost Embrace or Waiting for the Messiah—and even from Iosi, the Repentant Spy, a series which despite its differences still shared some DNA with his earlier films—this adaptation of Reyes’s novel finds Burman increasingly established in the realm of international streaming production. And he does so by telling a story that may have originated in Argentina but speaks to a reality that resonates worldwide.