Shrew’s Nest 2014

Set in the 1950s Madrid, a cramped apartment becomes the center of a fragile world. Montse Macarena Gómez earns her living as a seamstress inside this space, while her younger sister, Montse Niña Lucía de la Fuente, helps by working at a shop outside. Montse has spent years sacrificing her youth to care for her sister after their mother died in childbirth and their father ran away during the War. Left to be both father, mother, and elder sister, she hides from reality, nursing an obsessive, unhinged temperament and enduring visions of her abusive father mocking her. Suffering from agoraphobia, Montse cannot leave the apartment.

Carlos, a neighbor, falls down the stairs and knocks on the door seeking help. Montse, initially reluctant, eventually drags an unconscious and injured Carlos inside. With a wounded leg, he cannot move out of bed, and he becomes the object of Montse’s growing fixation. While the girl and Carlos conduct secret meetings, she advises Carlos to leave the building, but he has already walked away from his wedding night and is running from commitment to his pregnant fiancée. Montse drugs the pain-stricken Carlos with morphine supplied by regular client Doña Puri [Gracia Olayo]. Unable to break the deadlock, Montse’s attachment turns dangerous: she drugs him further and, at her most possessive, considers sewing his leg to the bed. The tension escalates when Elisa [Carolina Bang], Carlos’s fiancée who has come to reclaim him, is killed. Doña Puri and her niece become entangled in the escalating violence.

Finally, the deranged Montse meets her demise at the hands of the girl. In the wake of Montse’s last words, the girl discovers that she is Montse’s daughter, conceived after their mother’s death and father’s abuse. Montse had killed her father to end the incest and abuse, poisoning him and keeping his body on her bed for weeks before storing the remains in the armoire, too ashamed to tell the truth.

Out in the hallway, the girl drags Carlos out of the apartment and offers him comfort. Carlos asks for her name; she whispers it. Carlos smiles in response and remarks that it is a beautiful name.

it is a beautiful name.