Scripted series based on true crime cases always take pains to warn viewers that parts of the story they are about to tell are fictional, including the use of composite and new characters. They do this because it’s difficult to fit mostly complex cases with a lot of backstory into a handful of one-hour episodes, so they need to make changes to give the story the dramatic impact they’re looking for. But sometimes this fictionalization downplays many of the nuances of the case. That’s what we see in a new Netflix thriller from Spain.
THE CASE ISSUES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: We see news footage of Roasario Porto (Candela Peña) and Alfonso Basterra (Tristán Ulloa) talking about the adoption of their daughter Asunta (Iris Whu), the first child from China adopted in Galicia, a region in northern Spain.
The essence: Six years later, on September 21, 2013, we see Rosario and Alfonso in a police station. Asunta, now 12, disappeared an hour earlier, which is unlike her. Rosario and Alfonso are now porced and live around the corner; Since she is not in either apartment and she has not called, her parents are very worried that she has been taken.
Later that night, two drunk men get into a car and drive away from a pub. They stop suddenly when they see the body of a girl on the side of the road. Civil Police agents Ríos (Carlos Blanco) and Cruces (María León) are called to the case, and when they see the girl’s body, it appears that she was tied up and carefully placed in the place where she was found. An orange string was hastily thrown near her.
Since the girl is Asian, Ríos and Cruces meet Asunta Basterra, and visit Rosario and Alfonso to tell them. Rosario is shocked and Alfonso begins to sob. Cruces learns that they own a house near where Asunta was found; She belonged to Rosario’s late parents, and neither of Asunta’s parents believe she would go there.
As the detectives take the couple to that house, Judge Malvar (Javier Gutiérrez) arrives at the crime scene, but is called to the country house when Ríos finds pieces of orange string in a trash can. Rosario and Antonio stay outside while Malvar and his people search the house. There appears to be evidence that Asunta was in the house, at the same time Rosario was there to pick up something; It was after Rosario returned from the house that she said Asunta had disappeared.
Between that and the physical evidence they show, Malvar begins to think that Rosario, with whom he studied in law school, had something to do with his daughter’s death. Once Malvar sees some CCTV footage in which it appears that Asunta is the passenger in a particular car, he orders the police to arrest Rosario, even though she is at Asunta’s funeral.
What shows will it remind you of? The Asunta case is similar to a series of dramas based on true crime cases, although in tone it closely resembles the Offender series.
Our opinion: The first episode of The Asunta casecreated by Ramón Campos, Gema R. Neira, Jon de la Cuesta and David Orea Arribas and based on the real murder of Asunta Basterra, it starts a little slow, but it doesn’t take long to get to the heart of what this case was about.
It may seem that the police and Malvar have very little to go on when Malvar decides that Rosario must be arrested on suspicion of Asunta’s murder. But given the story of the real-life case this show is based on, there seemed to be plenty of reasons to arrest and investigate Asunta’s parents. We just wish the show’s creators would lay out those reasons in a slightly more linear way.
Since Asunta’s parents were eventually convicted of her murder, and Rosario committed suicide in prison in 2020, the show’s creators make sure to show Asunta’s parents at times when the police are not present. They mourn her daughter, ask their lawyer friend what to do, and, in one case, take strange photographs of her coffin at the funeral home. We wonder if the limited series is going to move forward by casting doubt on how the investigation and trial unfolded, given that Asunta’s parents maintained their innocence throughout the case.
Either way, for now we only see a prosecutor and a group of police officers eager to pin the case on someone, but what we hope to see as the series progresses is a little more evidence that leads the authorities to suspect the perpetrators. Asunta’s parents. along with the couple’s history that may also have contributed to authorities’ suspicions about the parents, as well as the evidence that led to their conviction.
Sex and skin: None.
Parting Shot: Rosario is seen in the detectives’ car after they gently drive her away from Asunta’s funeral. We then see “September 24, 2013” and a digital timestamp.
Sleeping star: María León as Agent Cristina Cruces stands out to us because she gives Cruces a little more empathy than we usually see from police detectives on shows like these.
Most pilot line: “Let me tell you something… Our species is about to become extinct, right?” Ríos tells Cruces as they return to the city from the crime scene. The line seems to come out of nowhere.
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. The Asunta case It’s worth watching for a case that shook Spain in the 2010s, but it seems like the creators are taking a very complex case and oversimplifying it, removing many of the gray areas that made the real-life case so Fascinating to start. with.
Joel Keller@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but make no mistake: he’s a couch potato. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and other places.
