Magical Girl

A mesmerizing cinematic sleight of hand, filmmaker Carlos Vermut's Magical Girl begins with a scene in which a young schoolgirl makes a note—which her teacher is demanding to see—disappear from her palm. The film then follows the efforts of unemployed Luis (Luis Bermejo) to raise cash to buy an expensive costume—the dress that is worn by the heroine of the titular anime series—for his daughter, a devotee of the show who is dying of leukemia. Luis's mission brings him into contact with the grown-up former schoolgirl, Barbara (Barbara Lennie), who is now a psychologically troubled housewife in thrall to her therapist husband. Luis sleeps with Barbara, records their encounter, and then blackmails her—threatening to turn over the evidence of her infidelity to her spouse. When Barbara's attempt to raise the cash by prostituting herself to an evil abuser fails, she asks her erstwhile teacher—who has been recently released from prison—to make the crisis go away. Plausibility is in short supply in Magical Girl, which is thematically about the conflict between reason and passion in the Spanish soul. But while the film makes little literal sense, its hallucinatory quality grows increasingly compelling, and will hold viewers captive. Recommended. (F. Swietek)