Undercover

This Spanish thriller delivers an unforgettable lead performance

The ETA terrorist group disbanded officially in 2018, albeit their violent attacks had stopped in 2010. Spain, however, had been living with this internal war since 1970; ETA even became the fourth most active terrorist group in the world. Spanish authorities were at a loss for how to combat it, even indulging in dirty war tactics. However, one of the most effective ways to dissolve any criminal group is by having a mole.

Undercover (2024) is a story based on true events of a Spanish cop Monica (Carolina Yuste) who is recruited straight out of the Police Academy in 1990 by Angel (Luis Tosar) to infiltrate ETA. She would spend 8 years undercover, starting as a sympathizer and eventually becoming an assistant to the fervent if bumbling ETA member Kepa (Iñigo Gastesi).

Undercover is directed by Arantxa Echevarria, and is her second film this year after Politicamente Incorrectos (2024). Undercover is a return to the more dramatic cinematic roots of one of her best films, Carmen y Lola () where she began her collaboration with Yuste. While the latter film dealt with the romani culture in Spain, which can remain taboo, Undercover delves into a far more emotional subject for Spaniards.

The reflection of the reign of terror that ETA, brought, is something that the artistic world is only starting to explore, with the chronological distance allowing for a national digestion and reflection to occur. Such is the case with the popular novel “Patria” by Fernando Aramburu, which was later turned into an HBO miniseries in 2020, and Maixabel (2021), which also featured Tosar, albeit that time playing an ETA prisoner who encounters the wife of the man he murdered. Undercover is the latest in this string of media looking back and asking viewers to reflect on this recent Spanish history. Political divisions and violent language is on the rise in Spain, as well the rest of the world, yet remembering the results that this division sows is an urgent warning from Spanish filmmakers.

Echevarria dons Undercover with the well-worn undercover-cop structure from other dramas like The Departed (). We get scenes where the mole is on the verge of being discovered and somehow finds a way to play things off. Echevarria plays with these expectations as well, never constructing her scenes for being too predictable and maintaining a realism as to the improvisations our mole undertakes. Echevarria also doesn’t permit the fact that her protagonist is a woman, to fall into objectifying female spy cliches, of making Monica a modern Matahari. Instead, Monica’s femininity is examined through the public shows of emotion expected of women in society; Monica must straddle the expectation of her true feelings with those of her masked self when comforting a murderer or sympathizer.

Undercover doesn’t lose sight that it is a character study of personal sacrifice and dangers of losing oneself in the masks we don within society. Monica has scenes to breathe and explore her doubt and confused identity, but Echevarria also keeping a tight edit, so that the thrills and tension don’t dissipate.

Undercover brings one of Spain’s greatest working actors on its roster. Tosar delivers an understated performance of police handler struggling to balance his care for Monica, navigating the politics of police groups, and seeing the bigger picture with the operation. Undercover, however, is entirely carried by Yuste. The Extremeñan actress has already shown incredible talent with her work in Carmen y Lola and Smoke & Cigarettes (2023), but Undercover is her best work yet, cementing her as the talent of her generation. Yuste threads the needle of showing a transparent multilayered performance that viewers can read, but that scene-partners can’t. As such, she both shows rage and empathy when comforting an ETA sympathizer, or fear and lethargy when being confronted with suspicion. There’s even a silent scream scene in a bathtub that will remind some of Al Pacino’s cri-de-coeur at the end of The Godfather: Part III (1990). Yuste delivers a performance that I’m still deciphering, bringing a simultaneous duality that few actors in history achieve.

In the end, Undercover is an immersive and gripping thriller about the dark recent history in Spain. It takes on a typical genre structure, but does not to fall into cliches. The focus on character, meanwhile, helps spotlight an indomitable Yuste who delivers one of the year's best performances.

8.0/10