A New Yorker profile Netflix’s television chief gave a surprising access to see how the sausage is made at the broadcaster earlier this year. He summed up the company’s ideal product with an eloquent metaphor: the gourmet cheeseburger, an offering that was “premium and commercial at the same time.” But “Bird Box Barcelona” feels like a capitulation to the McDonald’s model, with details that are predictable for global consumers but adequately tailored to local markets.
While the original film used American individualism as a backdrop to its excitement, this Spanish-language spin-off uses the Catholic Church’s institutional pressure on the nation to add additional weight to an otherwise B-movie premise. “Bird Box Barcelona” plays with the spiritual undercurrents that come naturally with a world swinging on the brink of ecstasy. As seen in flashbacks throughout the film, a Catholic priest sees a divine miracle occurring through the collapse of society.
However, the hero of the movie, Sebastián (Mario Casas), sees things differently. He navigates a world where making eye contact with mysterious heralds of the apocalypse encourages people to take their own lives by seeing a light inside them. Encouraged by his daughter to be a good “shepherd” for the lost lambs, his quest for survival and redemption takes on a messianic glow.
Too bad the writer/director Pastor duo (aptly named) got a little too drunk on the figurative communion wine to really complete that connection. The allegory is interesting but insufficient. “Bird Box Barcelona” has no idea what to do with its great savior… and little else, beyond putting him in the middle of a family reunion story that gives the characters an excuse for geographic mobility.