Balancing inspired bursts of behavioural humour with the steady hum of rising tension, Voice Over, the latest film from director Cristián Jiménez (Optical Illusions, Bonsai) is a wry drama which cleverly exposes the gaps between the tidy narratives we create about our families and the far messier truths we try not to see.
Out-of-work actor Sofía has taken a “disconnection vow”: no mobile phone, no internet, and no television for one year. “To purify myself,” she declares – and she has also decided to disconnect from her husband, the father of her children. While attempting to set up her home as a place to do voice-over work, she finds herself spending a lot of time at her parents’ house, which bustles with four generations: her grandmother, her kids run who rampant and her sister Ana, who has returned from Paris with her baby and French husband.
Any remaining semblance of family harmony is shattered when her father declares that he’s leaving her baffled mother after 35 years of marriage. Sofía and Ana unwittingly find themselves cast again as daughters and sisters, lost once more in the labyrinth of family secrets.
