Benjamin Millepied’s feature directorial debut doesn’t just reimagine Georges Bizet’s classic opera Carmen, it completely reinvents it. Doing away with its music, plot, and setting, this version takes place on the Mexican/US border, a locale established through scorching vistas that feel as if they could catch fire at any moment.
And at points, they literally do. When Carmen steps onto the screen in the form of Scream 6 star Melissa Barrera – radiant as a young woman reeling with grief over her mother's murder - she sets her home alight. Leaving her past behind, she flees across the border and into the path of Paul Mescal’s Aidan, a former soldier struggling to adjust to civilian life.
