A woman called Emilia (Susana Canales) works as an employee in a fashion store has to care for her sick mother . At the same time she falls in love with Ricardo Fortuny (Luis Prendes) . She blossoms as she finds herself in love with Ricardo , and seemingly loved by the handsome young man , but he has to leave her to go to Valencia . Several of the bored , envious and unscrupulous coworkers of the store decide to have a good time and play a trick on spinster Emilia , as they play a cruel practical joke , to write fictious lettters from Ricardo when they are really written by a bohemian man : Angel (Fernando Rey) pretendingt to fall in love with her . The inappropriate joke made by various unscrupulous prankster women at the expense of a spinster developing a conflicting way and ends in a deep drama . Things go wrong when the hoax is revealed at the last minute and her mother falls in serious illness.
This is a splendid melodrama with religious message , retaining social criticism and it intensifies the dramatic facet by developing a peculiar romance , plenty of sadness and melancholy , as the ending is proof of that. . Based on on the short novel "Miopita" by Antonio Zozaya , being well adapted by filmmaker Manuel Mur Oti himself , but he completely overrides any vestige of humor . The film operates on multiple levels. The most obvious is the neorealist level . Here is also another level, beyond the neorealist drama , I would name it existential level , it is not only about that particular place in that particular time in the fifties , it's about loneliness and hopelessness . This is a 'rara avis' film of the 50s because dealing with a strong portrait of Spanish society and without a doubt, the best movie of Manuel Mur Oti , but it didn't please the pro-Franco authorities and was strongly censored . It's incredibly effective, and quite brutal too . It's about a universal experience of the social situation of the Madrid life , some years later the Spanish Civil War . Links both with the best tradition of Hollywood melodrama and with the Spanish literature about life in towns (Leopoldo Alas Clarin, Benito Perez Galdos and other authors) . Manuel Mur Oti knows what his intention is and what he's trying to achieve , and I think he achieves it perfectly to the point that it becomes unpredictable and you seriously have no idea how it's going to end . As the exciting final is really haunting and pretty memorable , getting redemption thanks to religious faith . Conceptual and political audacity as well as the social criticism result to be so evident in this film who he had to fight the censorship which didn't admit the some engaging scenes and obligated a determined ending .
The acting is pretty fantastic , but the directing is so on point and concise that it becomes the biggest star of the film . Fine performances from Susana Campos as a lonely , hopeless , hapless woman , she steals the show , she gives a sensitive and unforgettable acting . She is an extraordinary actress, and she is able to give us a portrait of a woman who is capable of great romantic love, although she's been deprived by circumstances of any opportunity to express this emotion. Perhaps the film excels thanks to the excellent support from the competent Spanish Ballesteros studio , displaying a Spanish secondary star-studded , such as : Rafael Bardem , Manuel Arbó , Casimiro Hurtado, Antonio Riquelme , Nicolas Perchicot and Julia Caba Alba who plays her ordinary role as a maid or Chacha. The motion picture was compellingly directed by Manuel Mur Oti . Very much recommended.
