She Walks in Darkness Review
Director: Agustín Díaz Yanes,
Date Created: 2025-10-17 18:03
3.5
She Walks in Darkness Review: Directed by Agustín Díaz Yanes, this Spanish-language Netflix drama combines history, emotion, and tension with muted passion. Susana Abaitua shines as Amaia, and she is supported by Andrés Gertrúdix, Iraia Elias, Raúl Arévalo, Ariadna Gil and others. On the backdrop of crisis-struck 1990s and 2000s in Basque Spain, the thriller follows Amaia, a Guardia Civil officer turned undercover agent to recruit for ETA, a Basque terrorist group that had fought a bloody fight to secede from the rest of Spain. This is a political story, but of the price of double life, being patriotic to the motherland and yet to keep losing yourself in darkness.
She Walks in Darkness Review
Un fantasma en la batalla drags you into a quiet maelstrom of obligation and terror. It is a dense mood, not of action, but of stagnation. Basque streets are full of concealed truths, and the film catches that atmosphere in its muted colour palette and unmoving camera movement. Paco Femenía’s cinematography makes each shot a photo of despair, fog-covered slopes, black skies, and vacant alleys where danger is near and out of reach.
What most surprised me was that no one ever tries to idealise heroism in the film. It does not shout; it whispers. It gets you through Amaia’s sleepiness, the anxiety of showing up there every day, the sense of losing what is around her, and the fear of being caught. Spanish movie She Walks in Darkness is about survival rather than a film of victory, and that separates it from most political thrillers on Netflix.
The film is based on actual events in Spain’s torrid recent past, the years of ETA’s armed campaign that convulsed the country. Agustín Díaz Yanes does not indulge in ideology or rhetoric, though. He reveals the minute human details that existed behind great historical headlines. Amaia’s undercover mission is not hip spy business; it is isolating, hard work, and toxic to the psyche.
What holds this story upright is the realisation that it transcends the political and the personal. Amaia is not a heroine; she’s a woman who can barely keep herself crazy working for something that probably never will pay her back in full. At times, the eyes tell us more than all of her monologues ever could — proof that courage sometimes just is hanging on as you’re falling apart inside.
Though I did enjoy the level of emotion in the film, I also wished for more glitter in the film. Pacing is painfully slow on purpose, and though it builds suspense, it also lacks patience, at least for the second half. Certain scenes just drag on and on, and the film insists on making us watch every last ounce of Amaia’s bulk.
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Anyway, I knew that this slow rhythm was intended to be useful. This is Amaia’s state of mind title for title: Un fantasma en la batalla — “a ghost in the battle”. She vanishes, from her enemies, from herself. She loses herself gradually, day by day, in a parade of false names and with every new mission. It is not a war movie but a survival psychological one.
Susana Abuitua’s acting is the highlight of this film. She plays dumb strength to Amaia, neither more nor less, always believable. She makes you think that this commanding officer turns into a traumatised survivor with pain all too real. Andrés Gertrúdix and Ariadna Gil in supporting roles add believability to the film. Their characters make you question who among them is truly right or wrong in this war in which everyone bled equally.
The one thing that I loved about the performance was that it’s never over-the-top melodramatic. Even in scenes of horror and betrayal, the emotions never get over the top. That realism has an underlying note throughout the movie — it’s not nauseating, it’s sorry.
While I, too, had valued the restraint and honesty of the film, I was not satisfied with it still. I had frequently felt that the film had presented too pale an idea of the political background. In the minds of people who are unaware of Spanish history, the reason for ETA could have seemed murky. There is some background which is presumed by the film and which obscures things.
It still remains stuck to your emotional skin even while keeping you historically dense. Laffly’s dissonant score, reductionist sound design, and realistic acting create a world that haunts beyond the end credits. Regardless of what political allusions might zip over your head, you sense the anguish of a woman torn between two mutually exclusive options: survival or truth.
Netflix She Walks in Darkness Review: Summing Up
Netflix’s She Walks in Darkness is no typical thriller. It’s deliberate, calculated, and full of character. Rather than constructing it on big explosions or runs, it captures the small explosions that are taking place within the core of the human body. I like the manner in which Agustín Díaz Yanes handles the topic with poise, teaching us how normal individuals find themselves in supernatural situations.
I also feel that the film might have been able to maintain its rhythm and its emotion at a more even level. More speed or faster cutting might have attracted more watchers. But I confess that subtlety gives it depth. The end frames of the film, Amaia running desperately in the forest, were flight and rebirth combined. She comes out battered and bruised, but the shadow never really leaves.
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