‘The House of the Spirits’ Berlinale Review: A Spectral Family Chronicle

In the tradition of the great Latin American epic novels—those sprawling, multigenerational sagas that trace the rise and fall of powerful families alongside the turbulent history of an entire nation—La casa de los espíritus feels like tailor-made material for a serialized adaptation. Its story unfolds across nearly a century, spanning at least four generations of a single family and the people orbiting them, with a temporal flow that naturally lends itself to episodic storytelling. That said, the very qualities that make it so adaptable can also render it predictable—if not outright conventional.

Many of the elements that felt striking when Isabel Allende’s novel was first published back in 1982 now come across as somewhat dated, even faintly passé, turning the series into a kind of prestige telenovela—something like the world music of television drama. Beyond its supernatural components and political implications—more muted here than in the novel—the series created by Francisca Alegría and Fernanda Urrejola often feels less like a reinterpretation than a carefully packaged piece of global cultural content, with moderate dramatic heft and, so far, an uncertain political edge.

The first three of the show’s eight announced episodes, screened in preview at the Berlin International Film Festival, cover the novel’s opening movements. They focus primarily on Clara del Valle’s childhood and young age—played by Nicole Wallace—through her “notebooks for writing life,” discovered by her granddaughter Alba (Rocío «Rochi» Hernández). In them, Clara recounts first her own story and later that of her family, gradually incorporating additional narrative voices.

Most of the key events of The House of the Spirits remain faithful to the book, with only minor or cosmetic adjustments—and a noticeably lighter emphasis on the era’s political tensions. Among them are young Clara’s fascination with her eccentric, globe-trotting uncle Marcos; the dog Barrabás that he leaves her; the tragic story and accidental death of her beloved sister Rosa (Chiara Parravicini) in a political attack meant for their father (Eduard Fernández), a senatorial candidate; and Clara’s subsequent retreat into silence, refusing to speak for several years. These early episodes also introduce her mother Nívea (Aline Kuppenheim), her siblings, the family housekeeper, and other familiar figures from the novel.

After Rosa’s death—and the traumatic autopsy that follows—Esteban Trueba (Alfonso Herrera) emerges as a central presence. Devastated by the loss of the woman he loved, he abandons his search for gold, builds a vast estate from scratch, amasses a fortune, and gradually becomes a deeply repellent figure—impregnating dozens of women who work for him while refusing to acknowledge any of the children he fathers. He eventually reenters the Del Valle family’s life to marry Clara, beginning a relationship that evolves from distant to deeply fraught. A key role in that dynamic is played by his sister Férula (Fernanda Castillo), secretly in love with her sister-in-law. Along the way come further accidents, grisly deaths, and—most distinctively—the growing prominence of Clara’s supernatural abilities, which allow her to predict the future, move objects, and perceive ghostly apparitions.

By the end of these first three episodes, Clara has reached adulthood—now played by Dolores Fonzi—and, in terms of the novel, there is still a long road ahead. Blanca, the eldest daughter of Clara and Esteban and a crucial figure in what follows, is still a child. For now, the series—directed by Alegría herself (episodes one and three) and veteran filmmaker Andrés Wood (episode two)—keeps specific political themes largely in the background, favoring broader, less contentious topics such as women’s suffrage, the abuse of Indigenous communities, and gender-based violence.

Although the novel never explicitly names Chile as its setting, the context is unmistakable. The series makes things even more diffuse: while the multinational cast’s accents could be described as vaguely Chilean-leaning, the political conflicts are rendered in generalized terms. The novel’s—and the country’s—most recognizable political episodes still lie ahead, so it remains to be seen how the show will approach those events and figures.

Beyond its specific local ties, the series moves along with a certain narrative lightness, especially in its opening episode, which efficiently introduces the principal characters and their world. The mise-en-scène is polished, occasionally sumptuous—its rural opulence recalling the grand estates seen in adaptations of Like Water for Chocolate or A Hundred Years of Solitude, two productions it inevitably invites comparison with—but also markedly academic, as though streaming platforms could imagine no audiovisual model for this kind of epic material other than one that already felt somewhat outdated in the 1990s, when Bille August brought the novel to the screen with a star-studded cast.

Tastefully staged sex scenes, touches of dark humor, meticulous production and art design, functional—often explanatory—dialogue, and a cast that approaches the difficult task of lending unity to a series of somewhat diffuse “Latinity” with utmost seriousness all add up to a show that is formally beyond reproach in its craftsmanship and fidelity to the source. Yet it remains curiously bland in most other respects. It’s hard to discern a distinct personality in a series that often feels less like a reinterpretation than a dutiful visual transcription. What ultimately emerges is a production with few obvious flaws, but also one that seems to lack vitality—breath, even the animating spirit it might need to claim an identity of its own.