Monica

Monica has spent years apart from her family when a call brings her back to her hometown in the Midwest. Her mother is dying, and help is needed to care for her. Monica returns to the house and to relatives she left behind as a teenager, and the stay forces her to reckon with grief, fear, and long-suppressed needs as she renegotiates her place among them.

Andrea Pallaoro directs and wrote the screenplay with Orlando Tirado. It is his second feature, following Medeas (2013), and precedes The Echo Chamber (2026). Trace Lysette plays Monica, with Patricia Clarkson as Eugenia, Emily Browning as Laura, Joshua Close as Paul, Adriana Barraza as Leticia, and Vladimir Perez as a car repairman. The film is an Italian and American co-production made for about 2 million dollars through RAI, RAI Cinema, The Exchange, and Alacran Pictures, with a credited crew of 59.

Released in 2023, Monica runs 113 minutes. Audience responses are moderate: it holds a 6.3 rating on IMDb from roughly 1,700 votes, and a 5.6 rating on TMDB from a much smaller sample. A critics' rating of 7.8 from 64 reviews places critical appraisal markedly higher than the audience scores.