Calling Girlfriends a promising directorial debut only seems to damn it and its maker with faint praise. It is promising in the same sense that Francis Coppola's 1968 The Rain People and Steven Spielberg's 1974 Sugarland Express were promising.

Girlfriends is a film whose parts are bigger than its whole, an imperfect film that succeeds almost in spite of itself.

Girlfriends is a unique experience: a wry and unflinching presentation of contemporary women facing up to universal conflicts and, for better or worse, making their own decisions.

This is a heroic film, realized with much devotion and little presumptions. [Full review in Spanish]