Sirat is a 2025 Spanish road film, directed and co-written by Óliver Laxe (with Santiago Fillol). Its many co-producers included Pedro and Agustin Almodóvar, which may be what drew me to it in the first place. It had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May and was released in the UK on 27 February.

Luis (Sergi López) and his son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) travel to a rave held in a Moroccan desert in search of his missing daughter. To begin with we spend about fifteen minutes at the rave, where our protagonists hand out pictures of the missing girl to ravers who, whilst mildly sympathetic, would clearly rather be getting on with their raving. There is a lot of noisy drum and bass music and, whilst I can’t help thinking that both drummers and bassists can be summarised as ‘people who like to hang out with musicians’, I have to admit it is quite atmospheric. However, Luis and son have no luck with their quest until a group of ravers tell them that another rave will be taking place deeper in the desert in a few day’s time, and that she could be there.

Then the army turn up and turn the music off and tell everyone to go home because there is a state of emergency and so this is now a restricted area – I know, we’ve all had parties like that … It later turns out that it is (might be) the beginning of World War III – I kid you not!

Anyway, Luis and son take off in their tiny van following the small group of ravers who told them about the next rave, because they are clearly not the types to be put off by a load of blokes in uniform pointing guns at them when there is the chance of a drive across the desert, for which they are magnificently ill-equipped, in search of more bangin’ music (literally).

So why did the girl run off in the first place – she didn’t – she is an adult and she just left, but she will be pleased to see us. Really???

I should say that about three-quarters of the way in, the film stops being as predictable as it had been up to that point: lots of surprising stuff happens, which make it a bit more interesting. However, the film’s problems are too big for the late twists to save it. There is a very sketchy plot, little or no depth of character, and very little to believe in or care about. Arjona, as Esteban, is a bit of a find – I thought he was really good – but apart from that, the acting is nothing to write home about either.

Is Sirat worth seeing? Unfortunately, not really.

Wait a minute, do I hear you say? But it has 91% on Rotten Tomatoes! Yes, but the audience score is way down at 67%. I have a theory about that – where the critics percentage and the audience percentage are a long way adrift, there is an issue. For art-house films such as this, the critics’ reviews will likely inform potential audience of whether or not it is their sort of thing. Consequently, where the audience figure is a long way below the critics, one should be a little wary, since that is the opinion of the audience who decided it was their sort of thing. Sadly, I did not heed this invisible warning.