‘The Beloved’ Cannes Review: Javier Bardem Anchors a Volatile Father-Daughter Drama

Ever since El ser querido (The Beloved), the new film by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, was first announced, people have pointed out its apparent similarities to Sentimental Value, Joachim Trier’s recent Oscar winner for Best International Feature. After all, both films revolve around strikingly similar premises: a filmmaker father who asks his actress daughter—someone with whom he has a strained relationship—to star in his latest project. In strictly narrative and formal terms, however, they are very different films, both in what they tell and how they tell it. Still, it’s undeniable that they are circling the same thematic terrain.

The Beloved is, more directly, a film that unfolds entirely within the world of filmmaking. The shoot itself—which in Trier’s film functioned more as a coda—becomes here the central arena where the drama plays out. Everything begins, however, in a restaurant, where Esteban Martínez (Javier Bardem), a renowned, award-winning Spanish director based in the United States, meets his daughter Emilia (Victoria Luengo), whom he hasn’t seen in thirteen years. Emilia, an actress who currently works as a waitress in bars, has been living with her mother, while Esteban has built a new family and cut off all communication with her for reasons that remain somewhat unclear.

During that meeting, the charismatic filmmaker persuades her to take the lead role in a film he’s about to shoot in the Sahara Desert—a Spanish production that marks his return to his home country after many years away. The tensions between them are still palpable, shaped by unresolved issues from the past—Esteban struggled with addiction and alcoholism, though he now claims to be in recovery—but the opportunity is too good to pass up. And so Emilia heads to the desert, stepping into an experience that quickly proves far more complicated than she expected.

The film sets not only father and daughter against each other, but also different generations and contrasting ways of working within the film industry. Esteban belongs to an older school, accustomed to a more authoritarian, almost dictatorial approach to directing. For Emilia, this creates a deeply uncomfortable overlap between the personal and the professional: her insecurities about the job—she fears everyone assumes she’s there because of nepotism—collide with the unresolved, volatile bond she shares with her father, a man who can be warm and charming one moment, and harsh, even aggressive, the next.

Sorogoyen, creator of the series Los años nuevos, captures the day-to-day life of a film shoot with striking precision: the camaraderie, the tensions, the small logistical setbacks, and the inevitable clashes of ego and personality. Because the production takes place on location, those frictions are constantly amplified—what begins as a joke, a misunderstanding, or a minor mistake can spiral into chaos or outright confrontation. One of the film’s key sequences moves through that entire chain of escalation with remarkable clarity.

At its core, though, the film is about the father-daughter relationship within a working environment, where long-buried emotions resurface. When Esteban’s more aggressive—at times even violent—side re-emerges, Emilia’s sense of stability begins to fracture, not only as an actress but as a person. Both performers are exceptional, and Bardem, in particular, seems poised to collect another round of awards with his portrayal of this proud, stubborn, and intense filmmaker—someone who genuinely wants to change but cannot always control his temper, nor fully grasp what is happening around him.

The film does run into a few problems. Sorogoyen experiments with shifts into black-and-white and with varying film formats, at times overindulging in stylistic flourishes that feel unnecessary. At the same time, he doesn’t seem entirely sure how to conclude the story after its strongest and most tense sequence. Perhaps most puzzling is the fact that the film being shot in the desert holds little intrinsic interest and never meaningfully connects to the central conflict. It feels designed primarily as a narrative excuse to keep the entire crew together in a single, contained space.

Even so, the director of As bestas delivers a film that is sharply observant about human relationships—not just between this absent father and his unsettled daughter. It also functions, almost in passing, as a harsh critique of the macho and authoritarian dynamics that persist within the film industry. A scene in a car, set to “La noche eterna” by El mató a un policía motorizado, stands out as one of the film’s warmest and most beautiful moments, arriving just before tensions on set begin to unravel. It’s one of the fleeting instances of camaraderie and unity—and notably, Esteban is absent from all of them. He’s playing a different game. One that begins and ends with himself.