Desire
Storyline
The story so far; the ending is not written yet.
Two sisters and one man; in 2018 a campaign group and a petition urged Netflix to remove it over the opening scene with a child.
After a prologue in the sisters' childhood, the film moves to Argentina in the early 1970s. Lucía and Ofelia were never friends; they simply happen to be sisters, and they have not seen each other for seven years. Lucía, the elder, is about to marry Juan, her partner of four years. Their mother, Carmen, flamboyant, manipulative and fond of drink and drugs, invites Ofelia to the wedding without telling Lucía, hoping to end the feud. Ofelia arrives from Brazil with her partner, Andrés; the two live in isolation in the Amazon rainforest.
The two couples spend the days around the wedding at the family's house on the cliffs, La Soñada. The sisters could hardly be more different: Lucía cannot enjoy sex, while Ofelia enjoys it without guilt. Juan walks into his bedroom to find Ofelia there, naked and shivering from the pool, and is captivated at once. Lucía, furious that her mother invited Ofelia at all, turns on Andrés for his manners. When Carmen, high on LSD, falls into the pool, both daughters dive in after her, each trying to prove she is the better daughter.
As the days pass the rivalry sharpens, and the film moves between past and present to show where the sisters' hostility began. Between Ofelia and Juan grows an attraction neither can control, and it puts both couples at risk.
Starring
Carolina Ardohainas Ofelia
The younger sister, who takes pleasure without guilt and returns from the Amazon for Lucía's wedding after seven years away.
Mónica Antonópulosas Lucía
The elder sister, strong and territorial, who cannot enjoy sex and cannot control her new husband's desire.
Juan Sorinias Juan
Lucía's fiancé of four years, who falls for her sister at first sight.
Guilherme Winteras Andrés
Ofelia's Brazilian partner, who lives with her in the rainforest and becomes the target of Lucía's contempt.
Andrea Frigerioas Carmen
The sisters' flamboyant, manipulative mother, who invites Ofelia to the wedding without telling Lucía.
Why it matters
Desire is a deliberately excessive erotic melodrama, which critics traced to early Almodóvar and the Argentine sex films of Armando Bo. Erika Halvorsen adapted her own novel, and the story sets a sister who cannot feel desire against one who feels it without guilt, with a husband as the prize in a contest that began in childhood. Argentine reviews were mostly negative. The film is remembered, though, for its prologue. In 2018 the Parents Television Council, a US campaign group, called a scene involving a nine-year-old girl child pornography and asked Netflix to remove the film, and an online petition demanded the same. Diego Kaplan said the child actors were imitating a cowboy film, never understood the adult meaning, and were filmed under their mothers' supervision. The dispute leaves a real question: what a film may ask adults to read into a child, whatever happened on set.