5 more minutes (2026), by Javier Ruiz Caldera

An Incomplete Loop of a Journey

Some ideas are so appealing on paper that one wonders how no one had explored them before. Trapping a couple in crisis inside a five-minute time loop, forcing them to repeat the same stretch of time over and over as the world around them falls apart, is undoubtedly one of them. 5 Minutes More, the new film by Catalan director Javier Ruiz Caldera, presented in the Official Selection at San Sebastián, starts out with such promising material and yet ultimately dilutes it into a stylistic exercise that promises far more than it delivers.

The premise is simple and effective: Toni (Berto Romero, who also co-wrote the screenplay) and Bárbara (Belén Cuesta) travel to a rural house near Girona hoping to disconnect from the world and, in the process, save a marriage that is falling apart. With no Wi-Fi or phone signal, they expect to reconnect away from their usual distractions. The irony arrives quickly: barely have they settled in when they become trapped in an exact five-minute loop, with the added complication that their memories are not erased with each repetition and that whatever breaks—or whoever dies—does not return to its original state. This is where the film should shine, and to some extent it does, but it is also where its problems begin.

Ruiz Caldera displays considerable technical skill in choreographing these repeated segments, most of them filmed as long takes, while the cast, rounded out by a solid Javier Cámara as the property manager, moves confidently through a screenplay that demands almost mathematical precision. The problem is that this formal precision is not always matched by substance. The more macabre twists, accidents, absurd deaths, and increasingly outlandish subplots pile up, the more apparent it becomes that the film favors accumulation over development. One gets the feeling of watching a succession of clever ideas rather than a story actually moving toward somewhere.

It does not help that the physical comedy, effective at times, tends to overwhelm the darker and more emotional side of the premise. Toni and Bárbara’s marriage, which should be the real dramatic engine of the story, is pushed into the background by the spectacle of the chaos, and when the film finally decides to slow down for a more restrained ending, the shift feels forced: as though it suddenly wants to say something serious after seventy minutes devoted almost exclusively to comic gore and absurdity. Neither the comedy achieves complete coherence, nor does the underlying drama fully take shape.

There is undeniable merit in the ambition of the project and in the craftsmanship with which it is executed, and those who enjoy Spanish dark comedy or the surreal streak of filmmakers such as Nacho Vigalondo and Álex de la Iglesia will find genuinely funny moments here. But the lasting impression is of a film that places too much faith in its mechanism and too little in its characters, one that runs out of steam before exploring everything its own premise makes possible. 5 Minutes More is certainly entertaining, and it surprises at certain points, but it ultimately feels like a great premise settling for less than it could have been.