‘Lionel’ review: Tender, understated Spanish father-son drama draws from real life

Dir: Carlos Saiz. Spain/France. 2026. 94mins

A father-son drama drawn from the brittle real-life relationship between its lead actors, Lionel boasts a tender story about the complications of family and the potential for reconciliation. Lionel Corral and Lionel Corral Bernal play versions of themselves in Spanish director Carlos Saiz’s small-scale feature debut, which follows the characters on a road trip from Spain to France that will resolve none of their differences yet allows them an opportunity to arrive at a tentative new understanding of one another.

Impressively balances different tones

With Alicia Corral Bernal on board as the father’s older daughter, who serves as a kind of meditator, the film is strongest as a naturalistic study of how we both love and resent the ones who are bonded to us by blood. Although Saiz certainly travels familiar narrative terrain, the novelty of an actual father and son portraying these characters should help separate this drama from others of its ilk, and its recent Transilvania Trophy win at the Transilvania Film Festival shoud also give it a boost.

In his mid-20s and working odd jobs, Lionel (Lionel Corral Bernal) discovers that he will soon stop receiving a pension he’s been granted since the death of his beloved mother about a decade ago. Unhappy at this development, the broke, restless young man must also contend with the presence of his long-absent father, also named Lionel (Corral), who wants his son to accompany him on a car ride from Murcia to France, where his daughter Alicia (Alicia Corral Bernal) is a Spanish teacher.

Saiz met Lionel Corral Bernal while in film school, eventually basing his 2020 short The Bonfire on Lionel’s tense rapport with his dad. Quietly observed with an emphasis on grounded, intimate exchanges, Lionel is stripped down so that Saiz’s leads can be as unencumbered as possible as the characters work through their issues. To that end the script, written by Saiz and Raul Liarte, was not shown to the actors ahead of filming, so that they would have total freedom to embody their lightly fictionalised roles.

The result is a loose-limbed drama that never feels like an indulgent therapy session or an amateurish production. It is a credit to Saiz and his three actors that Lionel impressively balances different tones, initially presenting Lionel and his father as acrimonious combatants before they eventually find a small measure of common ground. Lionel Corral Bernal and Lionel Corral imbue their characters with layers of bitterness as they rehash past arguments. (The father left when Lionel was only four, blaming Lionel’s late mother for the collapse of the marriage.) But there’s also space for a begrudging tenderness between the men, which suggests how stubborn family love can be.

Sporting multiple tattoos and a mustache, Lionel Corral Bernal has beautifully expressive eyes that underline his character’s sensitive demeanour. While Corral exudes a rigid masculinity befitting his weathered face and brash personality, the son is more passive, not entirely sure what his future holds. The characters’ loud disagreements have an unforced realism, with Corral especially galvanic when his father explodes at whoever dares challenge him — most notably, a French barkeeper who informs him that there’s no smoking in his establishment. When Alicia Corral Bernal later enters the story, we see how her easygoing manner has helped her endure her family’s feud. She conveys some of the same sweetness as Lionel, while being less intimidated than her little brother by their temperamental father.

Lionel never oversells its central domestic drama. Saiz’s straightforward shooting strategy announces the story’s lack of momentousness, although the care he brings to the performances illustrates his affection for these people, whose lingering struggles with grief, money and each other strike a chord. The film allows the viewer to be an interloper spying on these characters’ private, candid conversations, the distance between fiction and reality tantalizingly thin. Saiz respects the emotional scars Lionel and his father have accrued enough to understand that a simple road trip cannot heal those long-festering wounds. But he nonetheless offers a map for a brighter tomorrow.