Review by Michele E. Hawkins.

3.5/5

The invincible Spanish Armada is sailing toward England, carrying Queen Esmeralda (Emma Suárez) and her two daughters, Princess Rubí (Alexandra Jiménez) and Princess Salmón (Anna Moliner), for whom King Philip II has arranged politically advantageous marriages to English noblemen.  But the Queen has planned an escape for her daughters from the kind of male dominion over their lives that she has suffered throughout hers.  Being something of a witch, she whips up a storm to maroon her and her daughters on a deserted island where they can live a life devoid of men.

The Queen is mistaken, though, about the island’s being deserted: Marrón Leñador (Gonzalo de Castro), a woodsman, and his two sons, Verdemar (Fernando Guallar) and Azulcielo (Carlos Cuevas), have been living there for twenty years, determined to never see a woman again, so strong is the Marrón’s aversion to all womanhood.  Upon discovering the men’s presence, the women decide that the only way to secure their safety is to dress up as men until they can escape the island.

And, with further magic entering the mix, what could possibly go wrong?

Some of the film’s special effects suggest a limited budget.  The film was nevertheless shot in the spectacular Dominican Republic, and the filmmakers could have done a lot worse than to use its pristine beaches, semi-tropical flora, rivers, mountains, and moody volcano as their “deserted” island.

Albeit predictable in that true love will inevitably conquer all, The Tenderness is nevertheless a fun romp of misunderstandings, deceptions, passions, and magical confusions for an amusing couple of hours turning on the evident enjoyment by Suárez and de Castro in their characters’ disaffections for the other sex, and everybody else’s making the most of the consequent confusions.

Screening at Palace cinemas.