![‘La Perra’ [Review]: A Reserved & Melancholy Portrait Of Generational Trauma [Cannes]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/22122353/La-Perra-Dominga-sotomayor-Cannes.jpg "‘La Perra’ [Review]: A Reserved & Melancholy Portrait Of Generational Trauma [Cannes]")
Perhaps my favorite weird tidbit from the Cannes Film Festival is the Palm Dog Award. While not officially sanctioned by the festival, it nevertheless has become a decades-long institution: an award given to the best dog performance in a Cannes film. It’s perhaps best remembered for Messi, the famous dog from Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” winning in 2023. Well, I’m not a prognosticator by any means, but if there’s a betting line on Kalshi or something, I’d probably predict that Yuri is going to take the prize. Second-billed in Dominga Sotomayor’s elliptical and effusive fifth feature “La Perra,” Yuri, a black-and-brown mixed breed, truly earns that billing.
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The film, which translates to “The Bitch,” is a pretty exceptional two-hander about a wayward woman, Silva (Manuela Oyarzún), living on Santa Maria Island, a sparsely inhabited island off the coast of Chile, who happens upon Yuri and impulsively adopts him. A reserved forty-something who harvests seaweed from the beach, she lives a modest life with her partner, Mario (David Gaete), yet Yuri shakes Silva out of her cloistered shell, forcing her to connect with someone other than Mario.
If the setup sounds Sundance-y circa the early aughts, Sotomayor is much more interested in plotting, or even sustained characterization, than she is in evoking a mood. The film fluidly moves between past and present, drawing parallels between Silva’s current life and an event from her childhood that helps explain her reserved personality. When Yuri goes missing on New Year’s Eve after becoming scared by fireworks, Silva is forced to return to a cave on the island that defined her childhood. That previous incident is perhaps best left unspoiled, as the details matter less than its effect on Silva. Freely transitioning between timelines, with Rafaella Grimberg playing a young Silva, Sotomayor almost imperceptibly moves between these periods. A shot of Oyarzún looking out from the cliffs onto the ocean midway through the film elegantly transitions into a mirror image with Grimberg, in a moment that is almost breathtaking in how it connects the two.
Yet this isn’t a film concerned with the kinds of overt parallels that a lesser film might foreground. It’s not about the obvious symmetry between events, but about how Silva processes trauma and questions whether she has truly matured. Sure, Yuri’s escape mirrors a buried trauma that Silva obviously hasn’t dealt with. But the film isn’t about the mystery of Yuri’s disappearance, or even what Silva went through as a child, so much as how Silva deals with those old wounds. Much less focal, but nevertheless interesting, is Mario. A sturdy and supportive husband, he is also fleshed out as he navigates Silva’s impulsive nature. Their relationship feels tertiary to Sotomayor’s larger concerns, yet it remains one of the film’s most compelling aspects.
Instead, Sotomayor showcases how our lives repeat around us. Yuri holds the promise of a new beginning and a kind of maternalism that Silva has otherwise rejected. But the dog is also a stray. He’s impulsive and rash in a way that perhaps makes projecting feelings or trauma onto him a flawed impulse, something Silva cannot reconcile.
The effect of “La Perra” is then in the aggregate. The small moments and connections add up to a portrait of a woman shouldering immense isolation, despite being surrounded by loved ones. It’s the kind of naturalistic drama about the cycles and circulation of trauma across timelines that won’t exactly light the Croisette on fire outside of the Palm Dog. But it is nevertheless an astute, quietly moving, and beautifully observed feature. [A-]
