REVIEW: Belén [2025]

Rating: R | Runtime: 105 minutes
Release Date: September 18th, 2025 (Argentina) / November 7th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Amazon MGM Studios
Director(s): Dolores Fonzi
Writer(s): Laura Paredes & Dolores Fonzi / Agustina San Martín & Nicolás Britos (co-writer) / Ana Correa (book Somos Belén)

I couldn’t even grieve.

The opening scene of Dolores Fonzi’s Belén (adapted by the director and Laura Paredes from Ana Correa’s Somos Belén, with assistance from Agustina San Martín and Nicolás Britos), ensures that we always know the truth to what happened that fateful night in the hospital. Whereas a television show’s cold open would omit certain moments to create ambiguity as far as whether Julieta (Camila Pláate) committed the infanticide for which she’s accused (and been held without evidence for two years), the film’s point is that it was never a question.

Not only is she not showing, but the doctor on call practically rips her tight jeans down to see her bare abdomen. Neither he nor the nurse could ever in good conscious believe she was the corresponding eight months pregnant to match the fetus found discarded in a bathroom. The injustice, however, is that both would rather say nothing so as not to contradict the police’s fantasy to attach a convenient mother to the crime. They wish to strike fear into the public with one more example of the harsh carceral and social penalty for an illegal abortion.

This story is therefore made more intriguing by it not just being about the journey activist lawyers Soledad (Fonzi) and Bárbara (Paredes) take to exonerate their client. Its larger goal is to immortalize a case that inevitably helped create a sea-change for the battle to legalize abortion in Argentina and by extension grant its women bodily autonomy. We’re talking the hoops jumped through to drag the case into the public’s consciousness, the courage to keep fighting amidst death threats, and the ingenuity to overcome targeted bureaucratic obstruction.

The result is an effective courtroom drama that does its best to deliver a ton of context in a relatively short amount of time. We’re talking precedent as far as this not being the first time Soledad took over an abortion case from the beleaguered (at best) or willfully incompetent (at worst) public defender she and Bárbara know from university (Julieta Cardinali’s Beatriz). The insidious power plays by those holding authority over the law for personal or petty reasons (Luis Machín’s Judge Fariña). And religious extremism played out on afternoon gossip talk shows.

There’s so much going on (the involvement of Soledad’s kids as weapons against her and mirrors with which to see that sea-change registering in their eyes; Julieta needing a pseudonym to protect her family from the hate people have for what they’ve been told she’s done; the evolution of leaflets to full-blown protests taking over the streets) that the most striking bit of filmmaking courtesy of dark, blood-fueled nightmares gets lost by the wayside. Rather than enhance the drama, they feel like remnants of a different, less procedural script.

It’s a tough balancing act, though. You want to give your characters the three-dimensionality inherent to the strain they are under manifesting as ticks, dreams, and stark routine, but it’s nearly impossible for them to land when the pacing refuses to let the audience absorb the emotion before pivoting to another threat, another bigger picture argument (Bárbara calling out Soledad in a way that should add to their relationship, but just feels superfluous), or another comedic beat courtesy of the Sisyphean task to procure a crucial file under lock and key.

Thankfully, the messaging that one person’s experience with injustice can ultimately impact an entire population always shines through. As well as the reality that our oppressors often set the table for their own demise via the hubris of believing they cannot lose. The former is critical at a time where certain states in America are making abortion illegal and thus putting every single miscarriage under a legal microscope and the latter a blueprint to remind ourselves that authoritarianism and the patriarchy aren’t impervious to sustained pressure.

You must only find those willing to put everything on the line to apply it knowing the masses will follow if the mission can break through countless layers of containment facilitated and condoned by the government, churches, and media. Because a moment like Soledad debating idiots-with-an-agenda on TV may keep those who laugh at feminists laughing, but it also gives those too defeated to think trying matters proof that they wouldn’t be alone in the attempt. Belén’s arrest is this firestorm’s match, but Soledad’s indefatigable effort supplies the oxygen.