Sundays

Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s follow-up to Lullaby explores faith and female agency but loses its balance in the debate

The struggle with one’s spirituality is a journey that all of us undergo at some point. Most of our questions regarding higher powers and what such faith means regarding one’s own identity often occur in adolescence. Yet, as young people have become less religious over time (albeit there has been an uptick in churchgoing since the pandemic), the expectations of a young person’s devotion to God have changed. The crux of Sundays (2025) is the opposite, what if a teenage girl of a modern family decides she wants to become a cloistered nun.

Sundays follows Ainara (Blanca Soroa) a 17-year-old girl from Bilbao, Spain, who lives with her widowed father Iñaki (Miguel Garces) and two younger sisters (Nerea Robledo Espinosa, Nora Careaga Iglesias). She has a strong bond with her progressive aunt Maite (Patricia Lopez Arnaiz), yet is ashamed of her ambition to become a cloistered nun. When this information leaks to her family, a crisis of identity ensues for both Ainara and her family.

Sundays is the first theatrical follow up from writer director Alauda Ruiz de Azua after her harrowingly raw debut, Lullaby (2022). She has worked in streaming since then, with the flat Netflix romantic comedy Love at First Kiss (2023) and her domestic abuse mini-series Querer (2024). Sundays was lauded in its premiere winning the top prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival; and surely, any follow-up to Lullaby was going to carry heavy expectations. Ruiz de Azua doesn’t back down from another difficult subject matter, again as pertaining to women and the control of their bodies.

It is curious that the argument of a woman’s agency is presented in a rather inverse way within Sundays: as a girl having the right to cloister herself in religion, whereas it is usually the argument that religion is used to control women’s autonomy. It is not only a provocative premise, but it also leaves viewers stumped as to their own conclusions. Yet, while Ruiz de Azua seems to present Sundays as a complex debate about what Ainara should do, Sundays shows its cards regarding which side it’s really on.

Throughout Sundays the argument within Ainara’s family is how to convince her to backtrack and not “throw her life away” by becoming a nun. The debate most delved into within the film is thus more about how to approach this “problem” instead of the internal struggle within Ainara. Even when such doubts are shown in our protagonist, Ruiz de Azua clearly chooses to show a brilliantly fun life of an adolescent with weekend getaways, loyal friends, and sexual encounters with respectful teenage boys. By contrast, the scenes of the convent are barren, frequently shot through barred gates or windows, and devoid of color. It’s true that this contrast could show the level of Ainara’s devotion, yet Ruiz de Azua fails to explore that spirituality. By not choosing to engage in the surreal, we instead get a grounded and rational approach to the film; this portrays Ainara’s wishes as brainwashing and a tragedy instead of the coming-of-age that it appears was intended. As a result, there doesn’t seem to be much dilemma as to what is the right. To fairly showcase this other spiritual side, one need not personify God or demonstrate a miracle (that would go against the entire idea of faith), but one can show transcendental spiritual moments with camera or editing flourishes, such as Paolo Sorrentino does in The Young Pope (2016), or with music as seen in The Mission (1986). Those two projects showcased an internal debate of spirituality within them as well, yet viewers were included within the doubt of what side our protagonist should go to.

Ruiz de Azua’s greatest strength is becoming apparent with each passing project; she’s a master at crafting layered, imperfect characters that viewers easily empathize with. This was key to the immersion in Lullaby, and in Sundays, Ruiz de Azua once again draws hypnotic and deliciously contradictory characters. The Basque director is also draws the best work from her performers, Lopez Arnaiz is an anchor and guiding light for viewers’ doubts as an aunt desperate to “save” her niece. Yet it is Soroa in her acting debut who blows viewers away. By having Sundays be filmed in a realistic and grounded way, it is only through her faded smiles and wide eyes that Soroa transmits the depth of Ainara’s devotion. Soroa threads this consistent ambition even throughout moments of doubt, with teenage temptations. It is a stellar debut with a role weighted by large amounts of non-verbal acting.

In the end, Ruiz de Azua delivers another fascinating character study with performances to match. Her central premise is compromised, however, due to a clearly favored side, preventing viewers from grappling with the central question. Nevertheless, Sundays shows that Ruiz de Azua continues to be a talent to follow.

6.9/10