Parents' Guide to Rita

By no means an easy film to watch, this Guatemalan drama has one of the most powerful messages of any film about child abuse in recent years. After toying with the supernatural in films like La Llorona and the devastating Tremors, director Jayro Bustamante has finally gone all the way in Rita, in which he combines traditional Guatemalan myths, cinematic conventions, and an urgent sociopolitical message to deliver a film that's a must-see if audience members can stomach its horrors.

Relying on the poetic rather than the purely graphic, Bustamante weaves a tale in the style of Pan's Labyrinth and The Spirit of the Beehive to depict the lengths a child's imagination will go to in order to escape pain and trauma. Led by an ensemble of brilliant young women who operate like a theatrical troupe, the film has scenes that border on the truly horrific while never falling into gore or violence for the sake of it. Instead, Bustamante finds beauty in the most unexpected moments, allowing his actors to give name to the countless nameless heroes that inspired his most ambitious film to date.