After starring in Pedro Almodóvar’s mother-daughter melodrama Julieta, Emma Suárez is back in Michel Franco‘s mother-daughter drama Las hijas de Abril. She plays an estranged mother who returns to the lives of her young daughters when one of them ends up pregnant. But as she readjusts to the life she’d left behind, her youngest begins to understand why they might have been better off without her in the first place.
“Mamá, que hiciste? Que hiciste?!” That anguished question lingers throughout the newly released trailer for the Puerto Vallarta-set film. What has Abril done that drives her daughter mad? What steps has she taken to “help” this situation where a teenage girl and her boyfriend ended up with a baby in tow despite not being ready to take care for it? And will this all-female household survive the revelation?
Bringing the same touching tenderness and unnerving verve that characterized his previous movies Chronic and After Lucia, Franco has created another authentic portrait of a contemporary family unit. Mixing the sunny beachside vistas of Puerto Vallarta with the dark undertones of this family melodrama, Las hijas de Abril has the hallmarks of a lurid tale about how far a mother’s love will drive her to do the best for her daughters. It’s no surprise that Las hijas de Abril won Franco the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival – his third award from the famed fest for just as many fiilms! Check out the full trailer below.