Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Despite Everything’ On Netflix, Where Four Sisters Find Out They Have Four Different Fathers

Movies where people find out that one or both of their parents aren’t their biological parents aren’t exactly uncommon. But how about a movie where four sisters find out that they each have a different father? That’s the idea behind the Spanish comedy Despite Everything. Read on for more…

DESPITE EVERYTHING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Despite Everything starts with a sad event: The death of Carmen (Marisa Paredes) whose four daughters are living separate lives. Sara (Blanca Suárez) has poured herself into her work as a fashion executive in New York, despite still holding a candle for Alejandro (Maxi Iglesias), the love of her life whom she thought would follow her to the U.S. Claudia (Belén Cuesta) is drowning herself in wine and pills since her husband left, and none of her family knows. Sofia (Amaia Salamanca) is sexually adventurous, but has been seeing the same woman for a year, but won’t bring her to her mother’s funeral. Finally, Lucia (Macarena García) generally just feels lost, and has threesomes with random dudes whose names she doesn’t know.

At the funeral, their father Pedro (Juan Diego), who is suffering from the early stages of dementia, sees two men and a woman who he wishes weren’t there: Pablo (Carlos Bardem), Victor (Tito Valverde) and Ines (Rossy de Palma). He gets so upset at the two men that he goes after them with a butcher knife.

When the will is read, the notary plays a video of Carmen telling her daughters that, while Pedro is their father, he’s not their biological father. You see, it turns out that poor Pedro was sterile, so Carmen slept around so they could have children. Why not IVF? They tried back when it wasn’t as common, but it didn’t work. As it was, Carmen was a polyamorous type, anyway, and never wanted to be tied down sexually. They need to find their biological fathers in order to get their inheritance, but Carmen also wanted her very different daughters to spend time together, something which they hadn’t done in quite some time.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: There are plenty of movies where sisters bond or re-bond, like Hannah and Her Sisters or even Frozen, but none we can think of where the sisters bond over finding out which of their mom’s lovers conceived which sister.

Performance Worth Watching: Of the four sisters, Blanca Suárez has the meatiest role to play as Sara. Not only does she look for her father but we see how much she regrets leaving Alejandro. On top of that, when she finds out which of her mother’s lovers is her father, she seems to be the only one who can’t reconcile it, at least not at first.

Memorable Dialogue: “I was expecting to find another kind of man, but I’m telling you, you are the father I need right now,” Claudia says to her biological father.

Single Best Shot: Hard to describe how Pablo covers his privates in a pivotal scene. It’s best to just look at the shot and laugh.

Sex and Skin: Besides the scene above, not much. Lots of talk about sex, though.

Our Take: Despite Everything (original title: A pesar de todo) is a Spanish film directed with a light touch by Gabriela Tagliavini (How To Break Up With Your Douchebag). It clocks in at a breezy 78 minutes, and it has to cover a lot of ground, considering each sister has to find her respective father. In order to do that, Tagliavini had to cut story elements that might have filled in some blanks, like how the women found the names of the men to talk to. And some of the sisters’ stories could have been developed a bit more.

But those gaps don’t detract from how enjoyable it is watching these four mostly-estranged sisters get to know each other again. Their search takes them to some unexpected places, like to a monastery to talk to a monk that Carmen deflowered right before he became a priest. And the character of Ines, a cafe owner who becomes a sounding board for Lucia, provides a twist at the end of the film (one that was somewhat predictable) that ties a nice emotional bow on the women’s search.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite Everything isn’t perfect, but it’s just over an hour that’s crammed with a lot of plot and a lot of chemistry among its four leads.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Despite Everything on Netflix