Plenty of thrillers have been adapted for film or television after finding success as novels. A number of these have found a home on Netflix, as Bird Box and Mike Flannagan's The Haunting of Hill House, and Bly Manor, have all experienced success on the platform. In 2020, Carlos Montero Castiñeira brought his novel El desorden que dejas (The Mess You Leave Behind) to life.
Following the international success of Bong Joon-ho's Parasite, many people began to realize the amount of cinema and television they have missed out on by only watching English programs. Parasite is the only foreign-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, though several, including this year's Drive My Car, have been nominated. Streaming platforms like Netflix have plenty of non-English projects to view, and one of them that's worth watching is the 8-episode Spanish series, The Mess You Leave Behind.
The Mess You Leave Behind is a Spanish thriller set in Galicia, Spain, with an intricate narrative. The story alters between two literature teachers: Raquel (Inma Cuesta) and Viruca (Bárbara Lennie), whose lives only appear coincidentally woven at first. Those coincidences slowly become frighteningly similar as it appears Raquel is headed toward the fate Viruca suffered. Originally, it's difficult to see how these two women are (or will become) related to one another, but the basis of their commonality quickly becomes clear: Viruca has died and Raquel will be her replacement.
The series' opening image is of Viruca having a breakdown as she weighs her options. A man knocks on the door offering to help, but she coldly shoos him away. Soon after, viewers are introduced to Raquel and her husband Germán (Tamar Novas), who have moved to Galicia after the death of Raquel's mother. The Mess You Leave Behind continues with the back-and-forth storytelling as Raquel becomes the new literature teacher after Viruca's death (though Raquel is largely unaware of this at first). Raquel is told that the previous teacher committed suicide, but as she becomes antagonized, she begins to question if Viruca's death is truly what everyone has made it out to be.
Raquel's suspicions are shared by a few characters in The Mess You Leave Behind, though many are hesitant to acknowledge that publicly. Mauro (Roberto Enríquez), one of Raquel's coworkers, was Viruca's husband. He is confident that Viruca's students know more about her death than they let on. He is particularly fixated on Iago (Arón Piper), an edgy troublemaker who always tries to be the center of attention. Iago's close friend Roi (Roque Ruiz) and on-again-off-again girlfriend Nerea (Isabel Garrido) often join in on his taunts. Unlike Iago, Roi and Nerea know when things have gone too far. What these three do share, is that they all had a close relationship with Viruca. Each of them confided in her about their personal lives, naturally making them viable suspects in her death.
Early on, Viruca's story takes precedence, and the relationships she had with her students and husband lay the foundation for the countless red herrings The Mess You Leave Behind invokes. Some of these details help weave Viruca and Raquel closer together. Perhaps the most pivotal detail is that both women had affairs with men outside their marriage, and that torments both women in different ways. The Mess You Leave Behind's suspense truly begins after Raquel is harassed by a student who threatens to share a video of her affair with her husband. Raquel is slowly pushed into investigating the death of Viruca and her findings begin to haunt her. Throughout her investigation, Raquel finds herself in many dangerous situations, and she makes numerous unsettling discoveries about her students and her family.
Details of Raquel and Viruca's lives become frighteningly similar throughout The Mess You Leave Behind. Their similarities are prompted by the series' focal question: "How long before you die too?" This question is proposed shortly after Raquel begins teaching. One of her students slips one of Viruca's missing persons flyers into a stack of exams, with the question scribbled on the back. The not-so-subtle threat sends Raquel into a frenzy that she only crawls out of once the mystery is solved at the end of the series.
The end of The Mess You Leave Behind certainly has its predictable moments, but it doesn't take away from what the series manages to accomplish. As a thriller, it does evoke worry and intrigue as Raquel digs herself deeper into Viruca's story. The mystery of who is actually terrorizing Raquel and what their motives are, do not have the exact result the red herrings lead viewers to believe. The true beauty of The Mess You Leave Behind isn't its suspense. Instead, it is the weaving of Raquel and Vircua's lives that are at first, only unified by their occupation. In The Mess You Leave Behind, coincidences soon become an age-old pattern of history repeating itself.
The Mess You Leave Behind is now streaming on Netflix.