21/11/2025 - Javier Marco takes the antagonistic characters from his award-winning eponymous short further, opening up possibilities for a relationship that starts out toxic and veers towards surprising reactions

Nothing Personal enjoyed its world premiere in the Albar Official Selection of the 63rd Gijón/Xixón International Film Festival (FICX). It is the second feature directed by Javier Marco, after Josephine [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], and a thematic continuation - with the same leads - of the winner of the 2021 Goya for Best Fiction Short Film. The feature is performed by the same actors: Manolo Solo, a Goya winner for The Fury of a Patient Man [+see also:
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interview: Raúl Arévalo
film profile], whom we recently saw in a much more amiable role in The Portuguese House [+see also:
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film profile]; and Sonia Almarcha, nominated for a Goya for The Good Boss [+see also:
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trailer
film profile], and who appeared in Subsuelo [+see also:
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interview: Fernando Franco
film profile] this year. Rounding off the cast, in roles that did not exist in the original title, are Roberto Álamo (who had already worked with Marco on Josephine), Helena Zumel and Daniel Pérez Prada.

Like the short, Nothing Personal follows Lina, a journalist famous for her television appearances who, tired of the constant anonymous attacks she receives on social media, decides to tackle the situation head-on and confront, live and in person - without screens or handles getting in the way - one of her haters in his very own home.

The film kicks off with a run-in and unfolds mostly under that same roof: a far-from-luxurious house with a garden, in which the protagonist, Pedro, rents out a room left empty by his late mother. Under the pretext of renting that bedroom, Lina enters the dwelling that Pedro shares with his dog. And there begins a verbal duel that will veer towards unexpected situations, twists and emotions.

We see moments that often verge on discomfort - and also on incredulity - thanks to a screenplay light on action but heavy on dialogue, the latter loaded with reproaches, fears and miseries, penned by Marco himself and his regular collaborator Belén Sánchez-Arévalo and intensified by the actors’ face-off, in the vein of Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier in Sleuth, to cite Joseph L Mankiewicz’s masterpiece (a reference that is fully justified here).

Little by little, as that unwelcome visit wears on, several thematic fronts open up, oscillating between the need to be heard, revenge, redemption and seeing oneself in the other, however distant or different they may initially seem. With cowardice and human contradictions as the cement holding the plot together, failed parenthood ultimately brings together these two wounded animals who are bereft of joy. Even so, the film – with its economical mise-en-scène – feels at times static, claustrophobic and repetitive, a sensation alleviated by the scenes shot outside that boxing ring where its embittered protagonists spar.

Nothing Personal is a production by Pecado Films, LaCima Producciones, Langosta Films, Odessa Films, Biograf Capital AIE, Suculenta Producciones and LaCima Entertainment, in co-production with Belgium's Bulletproof Cupid. UK-based Reason8 is handling its international sales. 

(Translated from Spanish)