THE AUGUST VIRGIN: A Summer for Soul Searching

People like to say that your thirties are one of the best times of your life. The argument tends to be that because you’ve spent your twenties experimenting and making mistakes, by the time you hit 30, you’ve got things “figured out.” Yet while you might have figured out what you don’t want to do with your life in your twenties, that doesn’t mean you know what it is you do want to do moving forward. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that so many questions remain unanswered on the other side of 30.

Finding some answers to these questions is the goal of Eva, the protagonist of Spanish director Jonás Trueba’s latest film, The August Virgin. Co-written by Trueba with Itsaso Arana, who plays Eva, The August Virgin chronicles two weeks in the life of one woman in Madrid as she wrestles with her future on the cusp of turning 33. Locals like Eva tend to flee the heat of Madrid in August for cooler locales, leaving the city for the tourists who come to witness the traditional Saint’s Day festivities. By choosing to stay behind in a borrowed apartment, Eva is hoping to have the time to think over her life and what she should do next.

A Fresh Perspective

The film follows Eva as she floats through Madrid in the summer heat, living vicariously through the tourists as she sees her city’s landmarks through their eyes for the first time. She crosses paths with old friends like Luis (Luis Heras), a journalist who has been laid off from his full-time job and now must hustle to get enough work to pay the bills, and Sofia (Mikele Urroz), an old roommate from whom Eva has become distanced since Sofia became a mother.

Eva also meets new friends that she may not have otherwise encountered, including Olka (Isabelle Stoffel), a Swiss street performer who has found herself in Madrid after drifting through most of the rest of the continent, and Joe (Joe Manjon), a Welsh English teacher who came to Spain ten years prior as part of an anti-fascist band and never left.

Against such quintessential summer backdrops as riverside picnics and outdoor concerts, with a vibrant soundtrack featuring Spanish singer Soleá Morente, Eva and her friends discuss everything from friendship to romance to parenthood, in-depth and without filters. Their conversations could have veered into cliche, but instead boast an easygoing authenticity that many writers should envy. Through their delightfully introspective script, Trueba and Arana — both in their mid-thirties themselves — give a voice to the issues that lurk in the back of your mind as you hover on the precipice of adulthood that cannot be put off any longer.

Eva knows she wants to quit working as an actor, but she has no idea what she should do instead. Olka wants to stop making payments to the facility where her frozen eggs are stored, but she knows that if she changes her mind about becoming a mother, she will likely never be able to have a child. They are both at the age where such life decisions are no longer easily undone, with the feeling that they’re running out of time to start over lingering at the edge of their consciousnesses. Missed opportunities weigh heavier than they once did. And yet, when Eva and Luis contemplate what might have happened if they had ever dated, Eva notes that while she has never regretted not starting a relationship with someone, she has regretted the opposite many times — so, perhaps there are some things they are better off not knowing after all.

A New Beginning

As Eva, Arana is incandescent, glowing with the promise of the new and the unknown. Whether she is basking in the solitude of her borrowed flat or brightly introducing herself to a Reiki therapist who promises to realign her chakras, she has an honest and easygoing nature that will make you desperate to be part of her chic, sprawling circle of friends by the film’s end.

Eventually, Eva crosses paths with Agos (Vito Sanz), another working actor who feels similarly stuck in a rut, both personally and professionally. Agos has an eight-year-old daughter to whom he feels he has never been the right kind of father; he works as a bartender to make ends meet and spends the wee hours of the morning after his shifts in a ritualistic stroll through the empty streets of the city. Eva and Agos connect because they both aren’t sure what they should be doing with their lives, and yet by connecting they may have just written their next chapter together. It’s an intriguingly messy start to a relationship that all too many will be able to relate to.

With summer vacations only accessible via cinema for most American moviegoers as a result of the continuing coronavirus pandemic, The August Virgin provides a much-needed escape from the current world while still not stinting on intellectual stimulation. Watching beautiful young Europeans share c*cktails and dance in Madrid’s lively streets might cause your heart to break a bit in the era of social distancing, but the film’s focus on rebirth and rediscovery should go a long way towards healing you.

Conclusion

As lovely and languid as one of Eric Rohmer’s sun-soaked moral tales, with the same penchant for piercing conversation, The August Virgin is the perfect summer movie for thirtysomethings who have not yet found themselves.

What do you think? What is your favorite summer movie? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The August Virgin will be released in virtual cinemas in the U.S. on August 21, 2020. You can find more international release dates here.

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