5 MORE MINUTES

Close your eyes. Imagine the worst possible moment for you to be stuck in a time loop. For Antonio and Barbara, a last-ditch, no-reception weekend away meant to save their marriage is a strong contender. Do they even like each other anymore? Communication is broken, therapy talk is in bloom, a car nearly runs them over, a noisy plane flies overhead—and their couple’s weekend hasn’t even started. When they get to the house, Carlos, the guy from the agency, shows them around the property before they find themselves five minutes in the past. Over and over again.

But the lesson they planned to teach their son the following Monday—that actions have consequences—will turn back on them. This is not your traditional time loop. Worldwide chaos, small-scale hell, the apocalypse on a domestic level. This unpredictable weekend quickly goes from bad to worse, but it might just be their marriage’s saving grace.

This dark comedy flirts with thriller and horror elements in a very entertaining mix, and we can’t help but relish the escalating carnage as it bleeds far beyond the couple and Carlos. Built on the ongoing creative partnership between director Javier Ruiz Caldera and actor Berto Romero, the film is as sharply written as it is directed, claustrophobic in the best possible way. Romero, Belén Cuesta, and Javier Cámara show us how absurd and petty and downright cruel anyone can get. If five minutes are too short to fix anything, they are definitely long enough to make everything worse. (SONIA DROULHIOLE)