Multidisciplinary artist Amalia Ulman makes an appealingly idiosyncratic first foray into features with El Planeta, a captivating throwback to the shaggy aesthetic of micro-budget '90s New York indies that plays like Grey Gardens with a hint of early Almodóvar.
Ulman and her real-life mother Ale play a reduced family unit in the Spanish seaside town of Gijón, living beyond their dwindling means in willful denial as the foundations crumble beneath them.
The plotting is haphazard and laced with meandering detours that don't always pay off, but there's a distinctive voice in the deadpan humor and poignancy in the story's collision of aspirational self-delusion with blithe resignation.
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