This is one of two lesbian dramas that Spanish filmmaker Ruth Caudeli has playing on the film festival circuit and they both share the two of the leading ladies Alejandra Lara, and Silvia Varón.
Second Star on the Right is the story of four 30-something-year-old women who have been friends since schooldays. Now grown up and leading very adult lives except for one. Emilia (Silvia Varón.) is a bisexual actress/acting teacher who still lives at home with her mother which is part of the reason she carries a big chip on her shoulder. The main reason is her friends now have the financial security that comes with their successful lives and this causes an ever widening gap between them and Emilia.
This unhappy woman only wants to be with her girlfriend when she is drunk and when it suits her, and in fact she actually prefers the company of her young students who look on her as one of them. It’s an excuse for her not having to accept the reality of the situation and leads her into bedding one of the young men in her class. When she loses the job, she reluctantly allows one of her old friends to get her an office job for which she is thoroughly unsuited too and hates as well, but she desperately needs the security of an income no matter how small.
The 4 friends meet up every week even though in reality they have all grown apart now, but they sit convivially discussing the forthcoming wedding when one of them …… Angelica (Alejandra Lara, ) is getting married. It is at the bachelorette party when all four are drunk and in a swimming pool together that finally the truth finally outs itself, edged on by Emilia, and things will never ever be the same.
In typical Spanish fashion which we will never quite understand, the films ends with a song, with all the cast contributing to its ‘life is quite wonderful really’ type lyrics. However that in no-way casts out the underlying theme of sadness in all the four women now and not just Emilia that runs right through the movie. Maybe now they have let all pretensions go to become their real selves they will finally find happiness. Who knows
