Jana Raluy and Daniel Cubillo (Music Box Films)

A very real, many-tentacled beast strikes fear in the modern heart, leaving no one untouched. Director Rodrigo Plá’s taut drama, A Monster with a Thousand Heads, puts a human face on this creature, addressing one of the most insidious horrors of life today: medical insurance.

The film begins with a static camera watching a scene in near darkness. Sonia Bonet (Jana Raluy) is at home caring for her husband (Daniel Cubillo), a terminal cancer patient whose condition is worsening. She will go to extreme lengths to see that her husband is taken care of.

Plá (The Zone) observes Sonia’s unraveling from a cool distance, though at first he seems to revel in her near nakedness as she tries to contact her husband’s doctor on the phone. The odd objectification continues as we follow a secretary at the medical center where Dr. Villabla works. But Sonia is vulnerable, and the dry observation of the medical center places her in a dryly Kafkaesque milieu where she can’t possibly win her case without drastic measures.

Unwilling to sit for Dr. Villabla’s dismissive behavior—he’s just trying to catch a Friday afternoon squash game with friends—she chases after the doctor. With her son in tow, she follows him home. The doctor’s wife is sympathetic enough to Sonia that she explains that Dr. Villalba’s squash mates are in fact executives at the insurance company that denied Mr. Bonet the treatment he needs. How far will Sonia go to take care of her husband?

This is the first film feature for Raluy, who has previously worked in theater and Mexican telenovelas, and she’s a quietly commanding presence. She and the director maintain a slow burn throughout the film as her actions become more and more desperate. There is a lot of potential for melodrama in this scenario, but Plá keeps his actors performances from boiling over. Cinematography by Odei Zabaleta immerses the viewer in a glassed-in drama that obscures the unfolding tragedy in reflections that evoke the anxiety and helplessness of its characters.

A Monster with a Thousand Heads is a quietly powerful drama fueled by its visuals and central performance, and, at 74 minutes, there’s barely a wasted frame. Yet the film’s final act stops abruptly, lacking a final frame kicker to seal its indictment of the system (the film takes place in Mexico, but it could really be set anywhere). Which may well be the movie’s final evocation of a damaged bureaucracy: there’s no real closure when another beastly head emerges.

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A Monster with a Thousand Heads
Directed by Rodrigo Plá
Written by Laura Santullo
With Jana Raluy, Sebastián Aguirre, Hugo Albores
Not rated; contains nudity and violence.
74 minutes
Opens today at Landmark E Street Cinema