This is not just heartbreak. Pepa has given up roles, friends, and even a chance to move to Paris for Iván. And now, he’s vanished. She has one lead: a cryptic message on his office answering machine from a woman named Lucía, who mentions a suitcase and a flight to Stockholm. Pepa’s quest to find Iván quickly becomes a magnet for other unraveling women.
After her lover abruptly ends their relationship, a voice-over actress finds her already chaotic life spiraling into a 48-hour whirlwind of accidental arson, spiked gazpacho, a terrorist ex-girlfriend, and a dozen anxious phone calls—all while trying to hold onto her sanity and the last working answering machine in Madrid. Part One: The Message Madrid, 1987. The city is a burst of neon, red tile, and cigarette smoke. women on the verge of a nervous breakdown movie
Silence. The coward. Pepa stares at the machine. She replays it. Then again. Then she does what any rational woman on the verge would do: she smashes a vase, pours herself a glass of cheap red wine at 9 a.m., and starts chain-smoking. This is not just heartbreak
Only Pepa remains standing, untouched. She looks at the sleeping bodies and, for the first time, laughs—a real, exhausted, unhinged laugh. She pours herself a glass of wine. Then she calls a taxi to the airport. At the airport, Pepa finds Iván. He’s at the bar, sipping whiskey, looking like a Spanish Gregory Peck—handsome, hollow, and entirely unbothered. She confronts him. He gives her his signature line, the one she’s dubbed a hundred times: “The only thing I can’t resist is your resistance.” She has one lead: a cryptic message on
Then comes (20s), Candela’s naive, sweet-natured friend. She’s tagging along for moral support but is mostly interested in Pepa’s collection of vintage horror movie posters.