The House of the Spirits, a sprawling Spanish-language series on Prime Video, attempts to adapt Isabel Allende's beloved 1982 novel but falls short of greatness. The story follows three generations of women in a Chilean family, beginning with Clara del Valle, a charming little girl with psychic powers whose premonitions of death prove accurate. Decades later, her granddaughter Alba discovers Clara's diaries and realizes the horrors she experienced were predestined.
An Ambitious but Flawed Adaptation
The eight-part series, filmed in Chile and executive produced by Eva Longoria, is a more faithful rendition than the 1993 film starring Meryl Streep. It starts as a family saga before plunging into the violence of the military coup that ousted socialist leader Salvador Allende, a cousin of the author. While the drama excels in depicting tyranny and the maleness of fascism, it is marred by an overreliance on magical realism, which makes it feel old-fashioned and naive.
Strong Performances, Weak Narrative
The cast, including Nicole Wallace and Dolores Fonzi as Clara, Sara Becker and Fernanda Urrejola as Blanca, and Rochi Hernández as Alba, delivers solid performances. Alfonso Herrera plays Esteban Trueba, a rapist and domestic abuser who embodies rightwing Latin American politics. A major change near the end offers Esteban more redemption than in the book, improving on the source material. However, the fantasy elements—coincidence, prophesy, and destiny—undermine the story's organic development. Events feel predetermined rather than driven by human agency.
A Tale of Predetermined Suffering
The series captures the lethal idiocy of Esteban, who supports a military coup only to be horrified by its savagery. But the involvement of a person from his past in Alba's punishment feels too neat, almost excusing the perpetrators. Alba's involvement in leftist politics and her instant, irrevocable love for a revolutionary leader mirror her mother and grandmother's patterns. The ending, with Alba discovering Clara's notebooks and the narrative cycling back, reinforces a books-are-magic tweeness that is hard to accept given the real-life atrocities depicted.
Terrible things befall the women; their consolation is that they predicted them and survived. It is not enough. The House of the Spirits is available on Prime Video.
