Eye for an Eye

Mario is a nurse at a care home in Galicia. At work he is known as patient, gentle and reliable. A new resident arrives bedbound: the region's former drug boss. Mario takes charge of his care, and the man's son thinks his father is in good hands. The subject is not revenge but revenge taking a quiet, professional form. Mario does not shout or threaten; he adjusts the dose, the angle of the bed, the timing of a conversation. The invisibility of the violence carries the entire tension. The form is cold. Hospital corridors, grey Galician weather, little talk. There is almost no music and most scenes take place in one room. The director, Paco Plaza, was known for the REC films; here he drops horror entirely for thriller and does it expertly. Luis Tosar's performance is the centre of the structure: the man stays courteous to the end and the viewer cannot work out when to be frightened. María Vázquez and Enric Auquer are in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like Spanish thrillers and slowly built revenge narratives. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a fast genre film; this one is deliberately still.