Natalie D.C.
Aquaphobia, or the fear of water, is a relatively common phobia, affecting between two and three percent of the global population. One of the most common causes of aquaphobia is a past traumatic experience related to water, such as the one at the center of Swiss-Argentinian filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler’s The Currents (2025).
This psychological drama follows Lina (Isabel Aimé González Sola), a stylist from Buenos Aires who develops a life-altering fear of water after a near-death experience following her acceptance of an award in Switzerland. Struggling to re-adjust to her life as a wife, mother, and artist, Lina grows isolated as she confronts long buried existential questions. The film premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and is slated for a limited U.S. theatrical release from Kino Lorber on June 5.
The Currents does a phenomenal job playing with Lina’s—and the audience’s—senses. Immediately, viewers are thrust into Lina’s grey perspective of Geneva, Switzerland, peppered with primary colors—from her blue coat to her red lipstick to her yellow shock blanket—as she survives an impulse-driven plunge into an icy lake.
As Lina returns home to Buenos Aires and attempts to readjust to her life, sound and touch take focus; specifically, the ominous sound of rushing water or the itchy feeling of Lina’s still-unwashed hair. It is small moments like these where the audience feels most connected to Lina’s despair and loneliness in the wake of a traumatic event she can’t bear to repeat, lest she relive it.
“It’s like you never came back.” This devastating sentence is delivered by Lina’s caring, yet distant husband Pedro (Esteban Bigliardi) who mourns the woman who seems to have never returned from her trip to Geneva. Indeed, Lina is a shell of the wife, mother, and artist she once was, and this dissociation is most present in Mumenthaler’s surreal direction as the viewer is thrust from one moment of Lina’s dreamlike life to the next.
While The Currents offers a simultaneously unique and thoughtful depiction of mental health struggles—specifically, anxiety, depression, and PTSD—Lina’s story is far from complete. The audience is barely given a glimpse into Lina’s professional life as a stylist, a missed opportunity given that a career-defining moment is what acts as the sole catalyst of the entire film. Given art’s importance in the latter half of the film, an interesting avenue that could’ve been explored is how Lina’s fears manifest in her own artistry, perhaps resulting in a piece that ultimately transforms how she sees herself and the work she produces.
Another missing piece of the film can be found in the character of Amalia (Jazmín Carballo), a beauty salon owner and Lina’s seemingly estranged friend who is the sole person she confides in as she struggles to clean (and feel like) herself. As Amalia gives Lina—or, as she calls her, Cata—a sponge bath and rides with her in the ambulance after a session gone wrong, viewers are never made privy to the two women’s histories with one another, neither how they know each other nor why they fell out of touch. Eventually, Amalia fades into the background of the film, another loose thread in the quilt of Lina’s obscured life.
Finally, a highlight of the film is Lina’s bittersweet interactions with her young daughter Sofía (Emma Fayo Duarte). While viewers are given a taste of Lina’s hands-off parenting style, the story could benefit from one or two more scenes between the mother-daughter duo, especially towards the end of the film when Lina suddenly reconnects with her own mother in an underwhelming third act that leads to more questions than answers.
Overall, The Currents paints an enchanting, albeit incomplete, portrait of a woman at risk of unraveling her very existence. A strong lead performance from Sola as well as confident direction from Mumenthaler results in a deeply personal film about living in a body, city, and life rendered unrecognizable from fear, trauma, and isolation.
