24/09/2025 - In his fifth film, Czech director Olmo Omerzu starts from an interesting premise that gets warped to the point of prompting disinterest and rejection towards his protagonists and their fates

Antonín Chmela, Dexter Franc and Barry Ward in Ungrateful Beings

Ungrateful Beings, a film by Czech director Olmo Omerzu that is competing for the Golden Shell at the 73rd San Sebastián Film Festival, is the story of a family – specifically, a broken family. And there are many broken families. It’s common for a newly separated father to go on holiday with his two children. It’s surely not unusual for that father to keep insistently messaging his ex to tell her how well they’re doing and how idyllic everything is. Sadly, it’s not rare either for a teenage girl to suffer from eating disorders. Perhaps less common is using that as a manipulative tool to control the emotions of those around her and get her own way. But, well, it does happen, for sure. Falling for a bad boy is something that many girls do, and the teenage protagonist of this film is no different. All of these premises pave the way for a family drama that promises to be compelling and demand our attention. The problem arises when the plot leads us down increasingly convoluted pathways. Events unfold amid murders, blackmail, identity swaps between parents and children, lies, and ever more outlandish entanglements.

To be clear, there’s no problem with extravagance. In fact, warped plots with surprising twists and turns that prompt thorny, risky moral questions can make for excellent films. The trouble comes when the characters embodying those stories are underdrawn, when the film fails to find the right tone to depict what it wants to depict, and when the fanciful surprises seem intended primarily to shock the viewer, rather than adding any complexity or depth to the narrative. It is then that we edge perilously close to failure. And, unfortunately, all of these factors are present in Ungrateful Beings. The movie remains watchable over its almost two-hour running time, but the interest lies in our curiosity about which immature decision the characters will make next to complicate their lives even further, rather than in any real emotional connection with them and their fraught fates.

Admittedly, the film tosses in a few interesting ideas about the nature of the bonds between parents and children, or about how lies and deceit sometimes keep relationships alive when they’re headed for failure. But layers of depth are missing – nuances that would help us understand why the characters act as they do, and enable us to truly empathise with their dramas and motivations. In the end, this seems to be the story of two parents (Barry Ward and Barbora Bobulová) willing to do almost anything to protect their daughter (Dexter Franc) and save her life. It’s a pity that, as we witness this effort, we cannot help but be stunned by the string of absurdities these people are capable of carrying out, without being able to feel much warmth towards them or their approach to life.

Ungrateful Beings is a production by Endorfilm (Czech Republic) in collaboration with Cvinger Fims (Slovenia), Lava Films (Poland), Punkchart Films (Slovakia), Kinorama (Croatia), Lonely Production (Czech Republic), Melocoton Films (France), RTV Slovenija and Czech Television. Dubai-based agency Cercamon handles its international sales.

(Translated from Spanish)