A summer spent with grandparents on the coast of Spain is quickly transformed for two sisters when their grandmother is found suddenly dead on the stairs. A whirlwind summer, and a changed young girl, Forastera follows a family grieving, touching on themes of memory and change, and how we honour those who are gone.

Catalina and her sister are spending the summer with their grandparents. One evening, Catalina, her grandmother’s namesake, finds her grandmother has fallen on the stairs and passed away. As their mother comes from Madrid to help their grandfather through the hard time, Catalina slowly takes on the mannerisms of her grandmother, while also wearing her clothes and taking her place in the family conversations. The lines begin to blur for the young girl between who she is and who she is becoming, until her own place in the family begins to be questioned in this haunting story of grief.

The word forastera is the feminine form of the Spanish adjective and noun that translates to foreigner, outsider, or stranger. But as we watch the film, we are left wondering who the stranger is. With the same name, either of the Catalina’s could be our outsider. Is it the one who has passed, seemingly haunting the home and the family, or is it the young granddaughter, who is becoming her grandmother, taking her place after she has gone.

This melancholic ghost story touches beautifully on themes of memory and grief. Through Catalina’s experiences, her inability to draw the line between herself and her grandmother in her passing reminds how different healing looks for everyone. In our own ways, we each try to honour and remember those we lose, and in Forastera we are shown many ways. Through Catalina’s sister we see sadness, through her mother we see those who need to continue with their routine, and through her grandfather we see anger and sorrow. Healing looks different for everyone, and it is the transformation from who we were before their death to who we are after that Catalina’s story focusses on the most, rather than suggesting one correct way to handle our grief.

Through the youthful protagonist of Catalina, we see how grief can transform us. How we often, and unknowingly, take on certain aspects of those we have lost, hoping to fill the gap that they have left behind in their death. Using a teen as the protagonist, many of the societal expectations of adults covering their grief are shed, as we experience this transformation through a naive lens. She becomes her grandmother, but with an innocent and unknowing air that makes her transformation that much more genuine. Simply seeing her family change, she must take it upon herself to hold it together, as her grandmother once did not long before.

There is a little bit of a strange dynamic here, when we are reminded that this is a young teenage girl who is slowly taking the role of her grandmother. Some aspects of the film are a bit uncomfortable to watch, as we see a child step in to the role of an adult. This works overall, as we are reminded of the naivety of the protagonist that works so well in the film’s themes of memory and grief, but it does make it slightly difficult to fully sympathize with Catalina at certain moments of the film.

Aside from this, the pacing of the film remains constant throughout, which adds to our experience with the family as we move through their grief with them. We are merely observing a family grieving and seeing how this loss has changed them, rather than the death acting as some catalyst for a huge change after the death. We see a transformation happen at the same pace as life moving forwards, also reminding us that there is no timeline for grief.

Moving at a pace that can only be described as life, Forastera reminds us that grief and healing look different for everyone. The little things that we keep within ourselves and our daily lives that come from those we love who are gone are the things that shape who we will become in the future.

Forastera will be released on May 29 in select theatres in Canada. Image courtesy of Grasshopper Film.