Review: 'You Are Not Me' A Juicy Christmas Horror with Queer Overtones

The subgenre of Christmas horror is a small niche, but one with clever offerings. "You Are Not Me" takes things one step further, giving the creepy story a lesbian gloss.

When Aitana (Roser Tapias) returns from Brazil to her family's massive countryside home in Spain together with her wife and adopted baby son, she's counting on everyone being surprised. But the real shock is hers when she realizes that instead of the traditional Christmas dinner with relatives, strangers are in the house – including a Romanian woman named Nadia (Anna Kurika) who's sleeping in what used to be her room, wearing her family's heirloom jewelry, and seems to have replaced her in the affections of her parents.

Rage and jealousy overtake Aitana, to the shock of her wife, Gabi (Yapoena Silva), who chides her for her for immature response. Indeed, it seems that Nadia is helping Aitana's stricken younger brother, Saúl (Jorge Motos), who has become confined to a wheelchair during the three years she has been away; and besides, if Aitana's parents, Justo (Alfred Picó) and Dori (Pilar Almeria), are extending some compassion to a refugee (as they say they are), what's the harm?

But the whole issue of family is a sensitive one for Aitana – as it is for many LGBTQ+ people – in large part because of her parents' past efforts to marry her to a man she didn't love. Her flight, we come to understand, was abrupt and desperate. She's happy now in Brazil with Gabi, and this Holiday return is evidently her way of repairing relations now that she's established a life of her own.

Moreover, something strange is going on... and as Christmas Eve unfolds with its various familiar traditions, the unknown people and rituals that become part of the night amp up Aitana's worry that her parents are being duped by a cunning grifter.

It's obvious well before the reveal what's actually going on, but the movie's mix of resentment and suspense makes the film a fun watch all the same, and its horrifying climax leaves you wondering what you would do in Aitana's place; the answers might not be as clear-cut as you'd like. In that way, "You Are Not Me" is a commentary on the compromises we all make while participating in a society built around zero-sum capitalism, and the Christmas Eve setting only sharpens that critique.

"You Are Not Me" comes to theaters and digital Dec. 6.