The first time we see Linda, the title character of Mariana Wainstein’s feature film debut, her back is towards the camera; we only see her earpods and the croissant she is eating in her right hand. The camera cuts to a full frontal shot: she could be any girl from any neighborhood, rich or poor. She walks with confidence, sure of herself. We soon learn she’s been temporarily hired as a domestic worker, after her cousin broke her leg in an accident, by a well-to-do family of four: husband and wife Camilo and Luisa and their children Matilda and Ceferino. Linda immediately breaks the norms of this household by refusing to wear a uniform and occasionally lounging about their swimming pool. Her presence awakens the more lascivious desires of Camilo, his business colleagues and friends, Ceferino; her effect on Luisa and Matilda is far more subtle. Camilo’s and Luisa’s upcoming 25th wedding anniversary celebration make things that much more tense in this erotic drama.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the 44-year filmmaker has written and directed several shorts as well as miniseries that are currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Netflix and Disney+. She has also worked as an assistant director alongside Francis Ford Coppola (Tetro) and Héctor Olivera (El mural), and even as a gaffer for Damián Szifron (Tiempo de valientes). She taught screenwriting at the University of Buenos Aires between 2003 and 2006.
Mariana talked to us about her journey as a filmmaker, working with actors, and the way power and toxic masculinity curtail desire:
Your journey to making Linda began with your shorts Las hormigas (2016) and Error 404 (2016) and continued with your work as a scriptwriter for such miniseries as Planners and Barrabrava (both 2023). When did you finally decide to make the dive to feature filmmaking and how did all these experiences prepare you for it?
I believe the idea of directing a feature film is always there in the mind of any filmmaker. It is a long process, not because of the making of the movie, but, in my case, because it was a product of so many experiences. After those shorts, I shot another one, Pivote, as well as music videos and I continued writing. Those miniseries were released the same year but were written years before. I also took part in the writing of División Palermo (for Netflix) and in 2022 I took on my first big project as a director, El mejor infarto de mi vida (The Best Heart Attack of My Life, a miniseries for Disney+). That project involved many weeks of intense production which gave me enough experience and certainty. The idea of directing a feature was always there and finally it happened thanks to a producer who is dear to me. That is how the process of telling such a complex and uncomfortable story as Linda began. It was a great challenge.
You share writing credits with seven other writers. Can you describe the story’s origins, how the idea evolved, and what was it like to work on it collaboratively?
I have always been interested in family dynamics, the power play within these spaces and how they can be pierced by beauty and sexuality. On the other hand, I was interested in exploring the distance that separates Linda’s and Luisa’s roles as women, each one’s freedom, Luisa’s role as a mother and how she sees her own body. How much real freedom comes with money? How much power does beauty have? How much happiness does hypercontrol bring? What happens when a domestic employee who should play an invisible role in this family, represents its canons of beauty and its members can’t help but feel attracted? Linda’s script is the result of this search, of these questions that interest me and have complex answers. In the course of the script’s development we kept asking more and more questions, keeping an open conversation so we could rethink these themes. The final script was written by Sabrina [Campos], Nancy [Gay] and myself, but it began with the collaboration of other scriptwriters. There are so many of us!
You built a solid ensemble around Eugenia “China” Suárez, who plays Linda in the film. They understand that a simple gesture can say so much more than words. And this is a film full of gestures and tiny reactions. Describe the casting process and how you directed these actors.
I fervently believe in the kind of acting that is subtle, small, that is capable of expressing an enormous amount of layers in a character. All the characters in Linda are complex, they are full of contradictions. The idea here was to build on that complexity through gestures, through erratic, almost imperceptible actions that would gradually generate a degree of tension. These are characters with so much volume, with so many layers, as ambiguous as real people. With this in mind, we found a wonderful ensemble, with whom we worked in building this universe with enormous enthusiasm. Each rehearsal produced an exchange of ideas that nourished the story. They are all very talented and to work collaboratively with them was a real treat.
The fact that Claudio has security cameras all over the house and that he spends a significant amount of time not only monitoring the goings-on of his staff but also of his family caught my attention. It stands as another way to exercise power.
Cameras in these neighborhoods, in these wealthy households, are pretty common but when it is used as a form of security, you want to see clearly everything that it entails. Camilo exerts total control over the house’s spaces and people. He can spy without being seen from the comfort of his office, he can stick his nose in everybody’s business, which he does. I think the saying that “families are the building blocks of society” offers us a way to think about how a family’s microbehaviors are duplicated by society. It is a metaphor of life as we live it. Cameras are another tool for the powerful, but in the end that tool delivers a terrible blow to him. A well deserved one, I think.
Above all, this is a film about desire and how societal norms, toxic masculinity and the need to preserve the status quo repress it.
The film talks about connecting to your own desire and how life or certain social norms repress it, particularly in certain family spaces. It also talks about an old toxic masculinity that is passed from generation to generation: the gifts, the promises, the supposed care, the lessening of a beautiful object. It’s interesting how Linda alters the supposed established order and reconnects each member of the family to their own desire. That manipulation, even when it is not done on purpose, overturns the table of power and places her in the position of having control. That’s where social status no longer matters, but at the same time, real control is on the side of the moneyed. At the end of the day, the most vulnerable are still vulnerable.
Linda will screen on Sunday April 6 at 3:30 p.m. and Tuesday, April 8, 8:30 p.m. alongside the Nicaraguan short Adelaida by Tamara Hernández at the Landmark Century Center Theatres.
