Love Gets a Room

Love Gets a Room (Spanish: El amor en su lugar) is a 2021 musical drama film directed by Rodrigo Cortés. Set in the Warsaw ghetto, it stars Clara Rugaard and Ferdia Walsh-Peelo.

Plot

Set in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, the fiction focuses on a group of Jewish thespians performing a musical stage play.

Cast

Jack Roth as Jozek

Freya Parks as Niusia

Anastasia Hille as Irena

Magnus Krepper as Sergeant Szkop

Henry Goodman as Zylberman

Dalit Streett Tejeda as Sarah

Production

The screenplay was penned by David Safier and Rodrigo Cortés. Nostromo Pictures' Adrián Guerra and Núria Valls were credited as producers. The film was produced by Nostromo Pictures alongside Love Gets a Room AIE with the collaboration of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the participation of TVC and Crea SGR.

Release

The film made its world premiere at the 18th Seville European Film Festival (SEFF) in November 2021. Distributed by A Contracorriente Films, Love Gets a Room was theatrically released in Spain on 3 December 2021. Lionsgate handles the international sales.

Reception

Reviewing for Fotogramas, Blai Morell gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, highlighting the "virtuosity" of its mise-en-scène and the musical compositions by Víctor Reyes, while noting that there was some performer who was not up to the task.

Raquel Hernández Luján of HobbyConsolas gave the film 80 out of 100 points, deeming it to be a cinema masterclass by Cortés, "thrilling and captivating" in terms of both the mise-en-scène and its honesty, praising the production design and the actors' direction, while noting that there were some repetitive moments and some over-abuse of the musical score.

Oti Rodríguez Marchante of ABC gave it a positive review with a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

Reviewing for El Periódico de Catalunya, Beatriz Martínez rated the film with 4 out of 5 stars, considering that, in this film, Cortés' virtuosity was put at the service of something more than a mere stylistic exercise.

Jonathan Holland of ScreenDaily considered the result of the juxtaposition of a musical comedy stage performance and the desperate offstage lives of the fictional cast to be "a fine technical achievement, a moving enquiry into what young love can mean under such conditions, and Cortés' strongest film since 2010's Buried", also deeming it to be, from a technical point of view, "a tour-de-force in several ways".