Goodbye, Berta

Summary

Alicia returns to her parents’ home in A Pobra do Caramiñal, a coastal town in Galicia, after her mother’s death. Her practical task is to select the clothes her mother will wear at the wake, but the visit quickly becomes an emotionally charged confrontation with the past. At the house, Alicia is reunited with her sister Berta, who has just been released from a rehabilitation center. Their mother’s funeral brings the sisters together at a moment when both are vulnerable, while also reopening old tensions and unresolved family wounds. Alicia is the more grounded and dutiful of the two sisters, attempting to manage the rituals of mourning and the expectations placed on her by the family. Berta’s return introduces a more fragile, unpredictable presence: she is trying to reenter ordinary life while facing the consequences of her absence and the complicated history that shaped her relationship with her family. Their parents, memories of the household, and the close-knit Galician community surrounding them all become part of the emotional landscape. Rather than treating grief as a single, clearly defined emotion, Goodbye, Berta explores the confusion that follows loss, when sadness, resentment, guilt, affection, and even dark humor coexist. The film focuses on the uneasy process of rebuilding intimacy between two sisters who have been separated by addiction, family roles, and years of unspoken pain. Its coastal setting adds a sense of stillness and rootedness, contrasting with the instability of Berta’s return and Alicia’s attempt to keep everything under control. Intimate and character-driven, the film examines mourning, forgiveness, memory, and the possibility of beginning again without pretending that the past can simply be erased.