Based on Isabel Allende’s acclaimed 1982 novel and adapted for television by Francisca Alegría, Fernanda Urrejola and Andrés Wood, Prime Video’s “The House of the Spirits” is a spectacular and heart-wrenching saga that chronicles three generations of women in the Trueba family. Beyond blood, these women are tied together by destiny and the decisions of the violent and tyrannical men surrounding them. Gorgeously filmed, the series is about family, passion, revenge and political unrest. The first Spanish-language adaptation of Allende’s novel is sensational, and long overdue.
Set in a deeply conservative South American country, which is not named, but is based on Chile, “The House of the Spirits” begins in the 1970s amid a violent, terrifying military coup. Alba (Rochi Hernández) arrives bloody and beaten at the gates of her towering family home in the nation’s capital. Weeping and overcome with grief, Alba is guided by the spirit of her late grandmother, Clara (Dolores Fonzi), to an old trunk. Packed neatly in the case, Alba uncovers hundreds of notebooks that recount Clara’s life over half a century, and offers her the missing puzzle pieces to her own fractured and confusing origin story.
Pouring over the many pages of her grandmother’s writing, Alba and the audience are transported back to the 1920s into the childhood home of Clara del Valle (Francesca Turco). The youngest of her siblings, Clara is deeply cherished by her family who indulge her ethereal whimsy, telepathy, psychic abilities and endless curiosity. However, her favorite person is her eldest sister, Rosa (Chiara Parravicin). A stunning beauty with green hair, Rosa attracts countless suitors. Yet there is no one more determined to win her love than Esteban Trueba (Alfonso Herrera), who seeks his fortune in a gold mine in an effort to earn a good enough living to ask for Rosa’s hand in marriage. Tragically, their love story does not come to fruition, and a decade or so later, it’s Clara (now portrayed by Nicole Wallace) who finds herself wed to Esteban.
Now a well-to-do patrón and landowner of a thriving farm, Las Tres Marías, Esteban appears to have it all. Unfortunately, as Clara begins to understand, he is consumed by rage because he never got to possess Rosa as he desired. This anger crackles around him like a smoldering fire, igniting and engulfing everyone from the workers on his farm, his meek sister Férula (Fernanda Castillo), to Clara and, eventually, to their daughter, Blanca (Sara Becker and later Fernanda Urrejola), Alba’s idealistic mother.
On the surface, “The House of the Spirits” is a typical family epic tracing shifts in tradition. It focuses on the rise of women’s autonomy and how that progression affects not only familial dynamics but also a swiftly changing country as a whole, as its citizens try to unshackle themselves from the chains of machismo and conservatism. Still, this eight-episode series, which is executive produced by Isabel Allende, Eva Longoria and Courtney Saladino, is much more than that. Miraculous to behold, especially following the ill-conceived 1993 film adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder and a majority-white cast, the show is as beautiful to watch as it is fascinating.
As Alba narrates Clara and Blanca’s stories before cracking open her own memories, the viewer can see how small choices made either in selfishness, greed or wicked depravity help shape the three women’s lives. Though “The House of the Spirits” has plenty of joyous moments, it is also full of volatile and depraved sequences. It does not shy away from the brutal assaults, sexual violence and anguish that the people, but namely the women around Esteban, endure either at his hand or under his watch. It’s an insidiousness that Clara first witnesses as a child when she interrupts an act of necrophilia.
“The House of the Spirits” is exceptional, not simply because of Allende’s eloquent and timeless storytelling, but because of the actors who have brought these characters to life in the way they should have always been rendered. The narrative is a reminder that cruelty is not fixed; it often tumbles outward, smothering those who had no tangible connection to it to begin with. Additionally, it is a recognition of the hearts and power of women, who are often the cultural carriers and waymakers in families determined, no matter how few resources they have, to forge a better path for those who come after them.
The first three episodes of “The House of the Spirits” debut April 29 on Prime Video, with the remaining episodes airing weekly on Wednesdays.
