Adaptación y creatividad en Un amor de Isabel Coixet

Abstract

In November 2023, Isabel Coixet's film Un amor, based on a novel by Sara Mesa published in 2020 by Anagrama, was released in Spain. The film was a great success with critics and audiences, but it was not without controversy, mainly because of the disturbing sexual consent it raises.

In decanting the novel to film, Coixet had to deal with what she called two “servitudes”: the expectations of a part of her audience, readers also of Sara Mesa, and the concern not to disappoint the writer even while affirming her own authorship. The article does not assess the accuracy of the adaptation, but rather proposes an analysis of how Coixet has managed to maintain a balance between all these factors. To do so, she uses, on the one hand, the incorporation of at least two intertexts, which add a depth to the story barely noticed in most of the reviews that have been published about the film. On the other hand, the mise-en-scène and focalization, the locations, the actors and their interpretation, as well as the nuances she gives to certain characters and how all this influences the reception of the story.