Santita, a new Mexican romantic dramedy on Netflix, poses an interesting question: Can a person reconnect with the love of her life after her life changed so much that she decided to leave him years ago? It’s the story of a doctor, paralyzed in an accident years prior, who is thrown for an emotional loop when the man she left at the altar comes back into her life.
SANTITA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A woman roller skates in a dreamlike state as Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” plays. Then she sees a familiar person, holding flowers, and she falls to the ground. The woman wakes up from the dream and says “Holy shit.” She’s lying on her couch next to her wheelchair.
The Gist: María José Cano (Paulina Dávila) is an OB/GYN that has her own clinic in Tijuana; she’s been paralyzed from the waist down since she was in an auto accident with a drunk driver in medical school. Her nickname is “Santita”, meaning “little saint,” but she’s anything but. One of the first places we see her is at the racetrack, losing money on the horses because she didn’t get inside info from the track’s vet that day.
But she’s also a caring clinician, as we see when she pulls over and helps a woman from one of the Haitian encampments give birth. That level of caring, though, has put her clinic in a bad financial position, as she feels people of all income levels should get the care they need.
At Sacred Heart hospital, where she has privileges, she’s having an affair with Mauricio (Eric Hayser), the hospital’s administrator. All she seems to be looking for in a man is the ability to give her an orgasm, which is something that’s hard for her to do because of her spinal injury. But it’s not impossible, and Mauricio gets frustrated when Santita doesn’t want their relationship to be any more than that.
One day, Cecilia (Ilse Salas), a wealthy middle-aged woman, comes into the clinic seeking an abortion. She came to Santita because the doctor was highly recommended. In 2019 Tijuana, abortions are illegal, but Santita will perform then; she doesn’t trust that Cecilia’s request isn’t a set-up, though, despite an offer to pay enough money to help the clinic financially.
She then finds out that Cecilia is the wife of Alejandro (Gael García Bernal), the man who keeps showing up in her intense dreams; he was the love of her life, but after her accident, she ended things by not showing up to her own wedding.
Cecilia decides to appeal to Santita, and finds the doctor at the track; she tells Santita that she and Alejandro are in a rough patch and the baby isn’t his. Santita agrees to perform the abortion, but an allergic reaction to the anesthesia sends Cecilia to Sacred Heart — where Alejandro comes back into Santita’s life.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Luis Cámara and Gabrielle Galanter, Santita reminds us of the Turkish romantic dramedy Thank You, Next.
Our Take: The first episode of Santita sets the situation up pretty well, even though we don’t see a flashback to when Santita’s accident or anything that actually happened 15 or so years ago. There’s a scene, for instance, where Santita plays poker with her brothers and some friends, and when one of the friends brings a date, that date gets the whole story about Santita and Alejandro.
So, yes, there’s exposition, but that exposition is at least clever and unobtrusive. The idea is that we want to get to know Santita now, because her life was transformed by the accident. According to her friends, she was a rule-follower before the accident, which is one of the reasons why she got that nickname. But after, she threw caution to the wind when it came to gambling, drinking, and relationships. And it seemed that Alejandro wasn’t going to fit into that new normal, no matter how much she loved him.
It’ll be interesting to see how they stay in each other’s lives. Will they fall back in love right away or be friends first? Given the issues in Alejandro’s marriage — though he had no idea Cecilia was pregnant — and what the previews indicate his health will be, things may develop quickly. There’s a reason why Santita hasn’t wanted anything other than casual relationships, and leaving “the one” was that reason. But now that “the one” is back and there might be an opening, we’re looking forward to seeing what develops.
Performance Worth Watching: Paulina Dávila plays Santita as someone who has had a lot of pain — physically and emotionally — in her life, but seems mostly to be doing OK, living life her own way. We’ve yet to see what kind of chemistry she has with Bernal, but we can’t imagine it won’t be fun to watch the two of them together.
Sex And Skin: There’s talk about sex in the first episode, but we don’t really see any.
Parting Shot: Santita wheels herself down the hall after seeing Alejandro with Cecilia, and she gets emotional.
Sleeper Star: Cecilia Cañedo plays Lía, Santita’s niece; we don’t see a lot of her in the first episode, but she’ll be seeking her aunt’s help later on in the season.
Most Pilot-y Line: There is a subplot where Santita looks to sue her brothers — whom she’s close with! — to get them to sell her father’s land and give her her share. We get that she may want the money to help her clinic and/or fund her gambling addiction. But it feels like a subplot that probably won’t get the space it deserves.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The first episode of Santita doesn’t hit viewers over the head with exposition, but it gives just enough information about its title character to help them get into the flow of her story with ease. It helps that Dávila and Bernal are exceedingly charming.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.