Wandering Girl (2018)
★★★ — Wandering Girl (2018)
Death and displacement have always been rich territory for Colombian cinema, and Wandering Girl (2018) arrives with a premise that feels both personal and universal: a teenage girl, Ángela, loses her father and finds herself suddenly surrounded by three adult half-sisters she has never met. The fear that she will be taken into state care sets the whole thing in motion, and what follows is a 900-mile road journey across Colombia toward an aunt who is, to Ángela, effectively a stranger. It is the kind of film that sits firmly in the tradition of coming-of-age road dramas, where the geography of a country becomes inseparable from the emotional geography of its characters. For context on just how varied and alive Colombian cinema has been in recent years, it is worth glancing at something like Monos, another Colombian production from roughly the same period that puts young people under extraordinary pressure in a similarly unforgiving landscape.
The film was directed by Rubén Mendoza, a Colombian filmmaker whose work tends to sit at the quieter, more observational end of the dramatic spectrum. The production is a co-venture between Colombia and France, brought together by Ciné-Sud Promotion, Dago García Producciones, and Día Fragma Fábrica de Películas, and runs to a lean 82 minutes. The tagline, "The mourning made us family, the road will make us sisters", sets up expectations of something warm but unsentimental. Comparisons might be drawn to other drama films concerned with young people finding their footing in difficult circumstances, such as Tiger Stripes, another drama reviewed here that centres on a young woman's experience of her own body and identity, or even Sugar Cane Alley, a drama equally interested in what growing up costs a child when the world around them is indifferent to their feelings.
The principal cast is led by Loren Sofia as Ángela, with Carolina Ramírez, Lina Marcela Calderón, and María Camila Mejía as the three older sisters, and Juan Carlos Romero rounding out the main ensemble. The four women at the centre carry the weight of a story that is, by design, more interested in texture and silence than in plot mechanics. Whether that restraint reads as artistic confidence or as a test of patience for the average viewer is, of course, the central question the film poses to its audience.
A-Z World Movie Tour Colombia Don't bother watching the trailer. I thought I was going to love this film. A story about a teenage girl going through the grief of losing her father, travelling Colombia with sisters she doesn't know to move in with an auntie she doesn't know. A family drama with a coming of age story Now.. in fairness... this film is absolutely beautifully shot. The cinematography is gorgeous and the soundtrack that accompanies it is great. The movie falls down in the screenplay itself. There are way too many long scenes with no talking at all. You're kind of expected to fill the gaps yourself. You have to decide how Angela is feeling because she barely speaks. I've said it a million times. Movies are either an escape from reality or a reflection of it. This is TOO much in the reflection of reality. A teenager who won't express her feelings. It's great from an art perspective but not so much fun as a viewer.
That tension between art film and watchable film is one I keep coming back to. A gorgeous frame and a well-chosen piece of music can only carry you so far when a screenplay asks you to do so much of the heavy lifting yourself. I have got a reasonable amount of time for slow cinema when the silence feels purposeful, but here it starts to feel less like a creative choice and more like a gap waiting to be filled. Ángela's emotional journey is real and valid, but without some kind of foothold into what she is thinking or feeling, it becomes hard to stay invested rather than simply admiring the view. Worth a watch for the cinematography alone, perhaps, but not one I will be rushing back to.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2018 | Watched: 2025-06-07
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Wandering Girl (2018) on YouTube
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