Film
The Heiresses
A Uruguayan film about Chela, a woman whose life capsizes when her girlfriend is imprisoned. She becomes a driver for wealthy older women, and through that work finds an unexpected connection with a younger woman. It's a quiet, observant film about loneliness, class, desire, and the small rebellions available to people trapped by circumstance. Tender without being sentimental.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you are drawn to quiet character studies where a great deal goes unsaid, and where a small, slow shift in someone's daily routine carries more weight than any plot turn.
Skip it if you need momentum and clear story beats, since this drifts at its own unhurried pace and much of its emotion sits in long silences and small gestures.
What it asks of you: Ninety-five minutes at a measured, watchful pace, with patient framing and scenes that linger after their point has landed, in a quiet register that rarely rises.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Carol2015
Two women from different worlds find each other across class and time. Like The Heiresses, it's about desire as a form of freedom, shot with patience and visual beauty, refusing to rush its emotional discovery.
But It's a period piece with a muted colour palette. If you want spectacle or plot momentum, this will feel slow.
A Bread Factory, Part Two: Walk With Me A While2018
Sally Hawkins and Elisabeth Moss in a film about a community arts space and the women who run it. Like The Heiresses, it finds depth in ordinary lives and asks what it means to build something meaningful.
But It's in two parts and deliberately unshowy. Nothing explodes. Some will find it meandering.
The Summer of Sangaile2015
A Lithuanian film about two young women and a transformative summer. It has The Heiresses' sense of quiet intensity and its belief that small moments between people can change everything.
But Very slow pacing. Long silences. Not much happens in conventional plot terms.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Heiresses
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Elegy2008
Same structural idea (age difference, class difference, two people reaching for connection across it), but inverted perspective and masculine rather than feminine desire, forcing different moral questions.
An older man and a younger woman, class difference, desire, vulnerability. But here it's told from the man's perspective, and it's entirely serious about the cost of desire to both parties. Flipped from The Heiresses' vantage, it asks the same questions.
But Isabelle Huppert. Ben Kingsley. Sexually explicit. Very adult in register—this is about bodies aging and the indignity of want.
More like this (7)
Moonlight2016
Three chapters in a life, each shot with painterly precision. Like The Heiresses, it trusts the audience to understand desire and tenderness without explanation, and builds its power through restraint.
But Fragmented narrative structure. Some find the lack of conventional plot resolution unsatisfying.
Trophy Wife2010
Catherine Deneuve plays a bourgeois wife who discovers agency when her husband is kidnapped. It's lighter than The Heiresses but shares its interest in women breaking free from constraint.
But It's a French sex comedy. If you want something more serious or contemporary, this might feel dated.
Tomboy2011
A French film about a girl who presents as a boy to a new community. Like The Heiresses, it's interested in identity, social expectation, and the courage required to be yourself.
But Coming-of-age narrative with a twist that some readers find heavy-handed. Very French suburban setting.
Stranger by the Lake2013
A French film about desire, class, and murder at a cruising spot. It shares The Heiresses' patience with observing how people connect, and its refusal to judge.
But It contains graphic sexual content. Deliberately provocative. Some will find it gratuitous rather than illuminating.
The Fits2016
A girl joins a dance team and becomes part of a community. Like The Heiresses, it's spare and visual, finding emotional truth in the small moments of belonging and desire.
But Experimental style. Very little dialogue. If you need plot clarity, this will frustrate you.
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles1976
Both films find the revolutionary in watching women's daily lives with complete seriousness. Both refuse to sentimentalize constraint or make it plot. Both are rooted in Chantal Akerman's philosophical approach to cinema.
Three hours of a woman cooking, shopping, having sex with a client. It sounds static but it's radical—a complete portrait of constraint, routine, and what counts as a life. The ancestor of The Heiresses' patient observation of ordinary women.
But Experimental cinema. Three hours. Almost no plot. Shot in real time. The sex scenes are matter-of-fact. This demands patience and will bore anyone looking for conventional narrative.
Eve's Bayou1997
Both centre women's inner lives rather than their utility to plot. Both use landscape and visual composition to express psychology. Different temperaments entirely, but the same feminine cinema philosophy.
A stunning Southern gothic about women, desire, secrets, and family. It has The Heiresses' visual sophistication and its belief that female interiority is cinema's proper subject. Lush where The Heiresses is sparse, but equally committed to beauty and truth.
But Genre film (supernatural elements). It's visual spectacle—the opposite of restraint. Some find the melodrama overwrought compared to slower films.
People
Cast
Ana BrunChela
Margarita IrúnChiquita
Ana IvanovaAngy- Nilda GonzalezPati
- María MartinsPituca
- Alicia GuerraCarmela
- Raúl ChamorroCesar
- Ana BanksInterna Principal
- Javier VillamayorPanchero
- YveraSinger
- Chili YegrosPitita
Directing
- Marcelo MartinessiDirector
Writing
- Marcelo MartinessiScreenplay
Production
- Marcelo MartinessiProducer
- Sebastián Peña EscobarProducer