Entertainment

María Zardoya, of the Marías, chooses to relive her breakup every night

Published

2 years ago

August 30, 2024

María Zardoya, of the Marías, chooses to relive her breakup every night

The chanting crowd’s “otra” wanes as a singular spotlight illuminates María Zardoya. The Marías’ frontwoman lies in a translucent bathtub, microphone in hand and partially submerged in its warm water. The somber piano of “If Only,” a ballad off their sophomore album, “Submarine,” fills the entire Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Zardoya’s voice takes on a melancholic, siren-like quality, while a trumpet adds a noir jazz accent to the eerie display.

As the song’s final notes linger, the 29-year-old singer retreats into the portable body of water, sinking her head well below its surface. Muffling out her surroundings, she says she’s taken back to the exact moments of heartbreak that inspired the L.A.-based band’s latest project, “Submarine,” released in May. The record is an unambiguous look into the romantic breakup between the group’s founders, singer and lyricist Zardoya and Josh Conway, drummer and producer.

Prior to creating the aquatic ethos of “Submarine,” the band was uncertain if they could make it past such a drastic change in dynamics. But with a dedication to vulnerability and their craft, the foursome — Zardoya, Conway, guitarist Jesse Perlman and keyboardist Edward James — were able to overcome this shift and create one of the summer’s most notorious breakup albums.

(Ringo Chiu / For De Los)

Ahead of the Submarine tour’s second L.A. show, I met the Puerto Rican-born singer backstage, in a shaded tent. Small in stature, she wears a floor-length dress with a large floral detail at its center. As she drinks out of an official Marías water bottle that reads “María’s Bathwater” — a layered joke shared between the group and their fan base — she recalls the exact moment she felt the group had passed the breakup test. It was during their show at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, a few weeks prior. The stage setup allowed the singer to go up onto a platform, where she could perform from a new vantage point.

“I had never seen that perspective of the stage before because I’m usually on it. I could see the guys below and I got super emotional and started crying a little bit. I was like, ‘Boys, like, we did it,’” said Zardoya. “It was such a beautiful moment because we overcame so much together and it feels like a family now. We’re stronger than ever.”

But this unified feeling among the band didn’t happen overnight.

The Marías, formed in 2016, found their niche in alternative music early in their career. The experimental indie track “Only in My Dreams” and the bilingual, requited love anthem “Cariño” cemented their reputation as up-and-comers. Ever since the beginning, the group has relied on a certain kind of duality to set them apart. As Zardoya pens her lyrics in both English and Spanish, Conway was quick to incorporate Latin influences to create a more accurate representation of who they are sonically — putting a unique spin on what could’ve been cookie-cutter indie music.

“I introduced him to so much Latin music. From just being around my family, the music and the culture, he picked up on things pretty quickly,” Zardoya said. “He knew that it was important for me to showcase this part of who I am. So when he started making this mix of reggaeton and indie psychedelic, things got really interesting.”

They continued to carve their path in the alternative space with their Grammy-nominated debut album, “Cinema,” in 2021. Their mesmerizing infusion of soulful rock, dreamy pop and Latin rhythms has stayed consistent, yet still inventive over the band’s nine years together. They have even collaborated with fellow Latin musicians Bad Bunny, Young Miko and Tainy.

“We’ve been listening to the Marías since we were young kids in junior high, and integrating Spanish into their genre means a lot to us,” said Andres Garcia, a longtime fan who attended the L.A. show. “I love how the Marías have still been able to stick to the indie genre while still being who they are. It’s something that I notice a lot of Latino indie artists are doing now.”

During the Hollywood performance, Zardoya called out for her “Latino family” and started to list various Latin American countries to see who was represented. The lead singer says she is thankful to share the “experience of being Latin in the U.S.” with her fans. Each night on the Submarine tour, Zardoya makes a point to walk through the crowd while singing. As people push and shove to get a glimpse of the lace-cladden vocalist, she is reminded that performing “makes all the moments of heartbreak [behind ‘Submarine’] worth it.”

“Submarine” is deeply rooted in the idea of tragic love. No matter how upbeat or funky, the tracks may sound — all its lyrics come back to a life-altering heartbreak. “Love You Anyway,” a psychedelic rock-infused track, is centered around the lyrics, “I know that you’ve always been in love with me / But I know that you’ve also had to watch me leave” — directly referencing that the two will always be in love, but have to accept not being together. The dreamy yet heart-wrenching “Sienna” transports listeners to another timeline where things work out between Zardoya and Conway, and they have a child named Sienna who “would’ve been cute” and “would look just like you.”

Zardoya says writing the album was one of the most humbling experiences. After the seven-year relationship, she says she was forced to look at life differently. During those challenging moments of growth, she turned to Buddhism.

“What’s changed the most with me is the beauty of embracing the present moment. Nothing lasts forever. The only thing that exists is right here, right now,” Zardoya says. “That’s helped me, even on tour, in the sense of just taking it one thing at a time and not seeing the big picture.”

After focusing so much emotional labor into “Submarine,” Zardoya was under the impression that sharing it with the world might help her move on. But after performing its personal contents on tour, she finds herself “reliving a trauma” night after night.

“It kind of depends on the night. Some nights I’m like, f— this. I’m tired of dreaming about this. I’m tired of thinking about this. I don’t wanna keep reliving this drama,” Zardoya said. “Then other times I’m like, ‘Thank God I went through it.’ It humbled me as a person. It made me more thankful for life and more tolerant of difficult experiences.”

Walking a fine line between emotional exhaustion and being gracious, she’s accepted that the aftermath of her breakup will be longer than the typical person who isn’t in a band with their ex-boyfriend. As she retells the highs and lows of the relationship through the nightly set list, she’s faced with a decision.

“I want to emit the emotion of these songs. And in order to get there, I have to reexperience what the song is about. It’s a choice,” says Zardoya. “I could choose to just sing the song and work on moving on from the situation. But I want to feel everything and I want the fans to feel it. Because what’s the point if you’re not?”

With only a few more stops in the U.S., the Marías will take the Submarine tour to Europe in late October. But the band still has plans for “Submarine,” Zardoya reveals that they will release a follow-up EP to the album. Some of the EP’s songs were written alongside the album while others were written after its release, but still belong to the same world.

“I’d say you’re still feeling like you’re underwater, but even more solitude,” says Zardoya. “There’s no bangers. They’re all, like, ‘crying in the club’ songs.”

As the last notes of “Cariño,” the final song in their set, ring out, Zardoya makes a dash toward the end of the stage. She jumps headfirst into the sea of overjoyed fans, with the intention of crowd surfing. The front section of the venue raises their hands high, in preparation to catch the singer. As the rest of the band continues to play, she is passed through the condensed audience — with a smile that can be seen from the crowd’s edges. Instead of the typical breakup comforts, like watching cheesy rom-coms or having a girl’s night out, Zardoya finds her greatest comfort in the hands of her listeners.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: “THE BRIDE!” – Assignment X

Published

5 hours ago

March 9, 2026

Press Room

Movie Review: “THE BRIDE!” – Assignment X

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: March 8th, 2026 / 08:00 PM

Rating: R
Stars: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Penelope Cruz, Jeannie Berlin, Zlatko Burić
Writer: Maggie Gyllenhaal, based on characters created by Mary Shelley and William Hurlbut and John Balderston
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Release Date: March 6, 2026

“THE BRIDE!” (as with the recent “WUTHERING HEIGHTS,” the quotation marks are part of the title) is awash in homages, and not just the ones we might reasonably expect in a movie that takes its most obvious inspiration from 1935’s BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

There’s that, of course, plus its source, Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel FRANKENSTEIN; OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS, and its sober 1931 film adaptation FRANKENSTEIN. But there are also big nods to wilder takes on the legend, including YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and even movies that have nothing to do with FRANKENSTEIN, like BONNIE AND CLYDE.

Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal casts a wide net in metaphors and ideas and looks. Sometimes “THE BRIDE!” is a comedy, sometimes it’s a crime drama, sometimes it’s a love story, occasionally, it’s even a musical.

Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) narrates the tale to us from beyond the grave. She is haughty and naughty, intoxicated by verbiage and her own literary genius. She is going to tell us a story, she says, that she didn’t even dare imagine while alive.

We’re in 1930s Chicago, where a young escort (also Buckley) is having a really awful evening out at a fancy restaurant with some of her peers and a bunch of crass gangsters. Shelley dubs the woman “Ida” and takes possession of her, causing her to speak and act in ways that get her escorted outside. There she stumbles and takes a fatal fall.

The two goons who were with Ida are happy to describe her tumble as the result of their intentional actions to their horrible gangster boss (Zlatko Burić). Ida was suspected of talking to the cops.

Around the same time, Frankenstein’s creation (Christian Bale) – let’s just call him “Frank,” like everybody else does – comes to Chicago to seek out the groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening), whose published works he has read.

Frank wants the doctor to create a companion for him. His appearance is unusual, but the most alarming injuries are covered by clothing, so he’s not as extreme-looking as, say, Boris Karloff in the role. This isn’t about sex, Frank explains when Euphronious asks why he doesn’t just hire a prostitute. After over a century of loneliness, he seeks a soulmate, and he is sure this can only be achieved by reviving a corpse.

So, Euphronious and Frank dig up the grave that turns out to belong to Ida (we never do learn how they know it belongs to a soulmate candidate as opposed to a shot-and-dumped male gangster). Euphronius revives her. Ida remembers how to walk and talk, but not who she is or what happened, so Frank and the doc tell her she’s been in an accident.

Even without Ida’s beauty, Frank is already devoted to the very notion of her. A more accommodating suitor would be hard to find. Frank has another passion, the musical films of Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal, the filmmaker’s brother), a Fred Astaire-like star. Frank imagines himself in the midst of those dance routines, and we get some more within “THE BRIDE!”’s “real” action.

One thing leads to another, Frank and Ida go on the run, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. They are pursued all over the country. Among those seeking them are sad-eyed police detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his secretary Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz), who’s better at this whole crime-solving business than he is.

It’s all very kaleidoscopic and energetic, occasionally impressive and sometimes very funny. Bening as the frazzled, worldly Euphronious has some great moments. Buckley, currently and justifiably Oscar-nominated leading performance in HAMNET, juggles the very unalike personas of Mary and Ida with impact.

Oddly, Bale underplays Frank. We get that he is trying his hardest not to spook Ida (or anyone else), but it seems like he should have a bit more spark. Cruz, going for a snappy ‘30s working woman, has her own style that works.

But in addition to being entertaining and eye-catching, Gyllenhaal has a message that gets very muddled. This is less because it’s so familiar by now that it feels a little redundant, and more because a crucial part of the set-up collides head-on with the feminist slant.

Ida seeks to be her own person, but she is literally bodily controlled by Mary Shelley, who puts her creation in danger with her outbursts. This may help get Ida out of the clutches of the mob, but it is possession, the aftereffects of which the character understandably finds confusing and upsetting.

If Gyllenhaal wanted to discuss or dramatize the clash between what Mary, as a woman, is doing to this other woman, that would make sense, but it seems we’re just meant to somehow overlook this while being immersed in how men control women. The resulting cognitive dissonance adds another layer to a movie that already has more than it can comfortably service.

Additionally, when Mary has one of her outbursts while inhabiting Ida, the plot comes to a screeching halt until she’s finished. Many viewers will wish Mary would stop declaiming and just let Ida be herself.

“THE BRIDE!” succeeds in being trippy and some of it is memorable. By the end, though, it is more disjointed than even a movie about experiments and a character made up of multiple people’s body parts ought to be.

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Entertainment

‘Sinners,’ ‘The Pitt’ win big at Writers Guild Awards after L.A. ceremony cancellation

Published

7 hours ago

March 9, 2026

Press Room

‘Sinners,’ ‘The Pitt’ win big at Writers Guild Awards after L.A. ceremony cancellation

The already highly decorated “Sinners” was among the top winners at the 78th Writers Guild Awards on Sunday in New York City.

The horror film, directed and written by Ryan Coogler, won the award for original screenplay, and its biggest competitor for the best picture Oscar, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” clinched the win for adapted screenplay. “Sinners” star Miles Caton accepted the award for the former, and “One Battle” cast member Shayna McHayle for the latter.

“Sinners” star Miles Caton and “One Battle After Another” actor Shayna McHale accepted the awards for original and adapted screenplay, respectively.

(Cindy Ord / Getty Images for Writers Guild of America East)

In the TV realm, “The Pitt” made a splash with awards for drama series, new series and episodic drama.

As for lifetime achievement honors, Robert Smigel presented Stephen Colbert with the Walter Bernstein Award for critiquing the power elite on his late-night show, which will air its final episode in May. Terry George received the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement from Don Cheadle, and Diana Son earned the Richard B. Jablow Award for Devoted Service to the Guild from last year’s recipient, Kathy McGee.

Most years, the Writers Guild holds simultaneous ceremonies in New York and Los Angeles. But the East Coast edition became a solo affair after WGA West canceled its ceremony amid an ongoing strike by its own staff union, who claimed guild management had “surveilled workers for union activity, terminated union supporters, and engaged in bad faith surface bargaining.”

The L.A. ceremony was set to honor James Cameron with the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, Don Reo with the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement and Mstyslav Chernov with the Paul Selvin Award for “2,000 Meters to Andriivka,” which won the award for documentary screenplay Sunday evening.

While WGA West’s board of directors said the ceremony was postponed to give members “an uncomplicated celebration of their achievements,” the Writers Guild Staff Union characterized the cancellation as an attempt to sow division between management and unionized staff, which is ill-timed given upcoming contraction negotiations between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Hollywood studios and streamers. In 2023, the WGA went on its longest-ever strike, lasting 148 days.

Comedian and Emmy-nominated producer Roy Wood Jr., who this year hosted the WGA’s East Coast ceremony for the third time, during his opening monologue offered (in jest) his predictions for the negotiations, which begin later this month.

“First, I predict somebody’s gonna lose their s—,” the host said. “Cooler heads are gonna prevail, and then somebody else is gonna lose their s—.”

Here is the full list of Writers Guild Award winners:

Original screenplay: “Sinners,” written by Ryan Coogler; Warner Bro. Pictures

Adapted screenplay: “One Battle After Another,” screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson, screen story by Paul Thomas Anderson, inspired by the novel “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon; Warner Bros. Pictures

Documentary screenplay: “2,000 Meters to Andriivka,” written by Mstyslav Chernov; Frontline Features

Drama series: “The Pitt,” written by Cynthia Adarkwa, Simran Baidwan, Valerie Chu, R. Scott Gemmill, Elyssa Gershman, Joe Sachs, Noah Wyle; HBO Max

Comedy series: “The Studio,” written by Evan Goldberg, Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck, Frida Perez, Seth Rogen; Apple TV

New series: “The Pitt,” written by Cynthia Adarkwa, Simran Baidwan, Valerie Chu, R. Scott Gemmill, Elyssa Gershman, Joe Sachs, Noah Wyle; HBO Max

Limited series: “Dying for Sex,” written by Sheila Callaghan, Harris Danow, Madeleine George, Elizabeth Meriwether, Amelia Roper, Kim Rosenstock, Sasha Stewart, Sabrina Wu, Keisha Zollar; FX/Hulu

TV & streaming motion pictures: “Deep Cover,” written by Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow; Prime Video

Animation: “Shira Can’t Cook” (“Long Story Short”), written by Mehar Sethi; Netflix

Episodic drama: “7:00 A.M.” (“The Pitt”), written by R. Scott Gemmill; HBO Max

Episodic comedy: “Prelude” (“The Righteous Gemstones”), written by John Carcieri, Jeff Fradley, Danny R. McBride; HBO Max

Comedy/variety series – talk or sketch: “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” senior writers: Daniel O’Brien, Owen Parsons, Charlie Redd, Joanna Rothkopf, Seena Vali; writers: Johnathan Appel, Ali Barthwell, Tim Carvell, Liz Hynes, Ryan Ken, Sofía Manfredi, John Oliver, Taylor Kay Phillips, Chrissy Shackelford; HBO Max

Comedy/variety specials: “Marc Maron: Panicked,” written by Marc Maron; HBO Max

Quiz and audience participation: “Celebrity Jeopardy!”, head writer: Bobby Patton; writers: Kyle Beakley, Michael Davies, Terence Gray, Amy Ozols, Tim Siedell, David Levinson-Wilk; ABC

Daytime drama: “The Young and the Restless,” associate head writers: Jeff Beldner, Marla Kanelos, Dave Ryan; writers: Susan Banks, Amanda L. Beall, Marin Gazzaniga, Rebecca McCarty, Madeleine Phillips; CBS/Paramount+

Children’s episodic, long form and specials: “When We Lose Someone” (“Tab Time”), written by Sean Presant; YouTube

Short form streaming: “The Rabbit Hole with Jimmy Kimmel,” writers: Jimmy Kimmel and Jesse Joyce; YouTube

Documentary script — current events: “Trump’s Power & the Rule of Law” (“Frontline”), written by Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser; PBS

Documentary script — other than current events: “Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP” (“American Experience”), written by Rob Rapley; PBS

News script — regularly scheduled, bulletin or breaking report: “Devastating Flooding in Texas” (“World News Tonight with David Muir”), written by David Muir, Karen Mooney and Dave Bloch; ABC News

News script — analysis, feature or commentary: “Remembering Palestinian Journalists Killed by Israeli Forces” (“Ayman”), written by Lisa Salinas; MSNBC

Digital news: “An Isolated Boarding School Promised to Help Troubled Girls. Former Students Say They Were Abused.,” written by Sebastian Murdock and Taiyler Mitchell; HuffPost

Radio/audio documentary: “Jerry Lewis’ Lost Holocaust Clown Movie” (“Decoder Ring”), written by Max Freedman; Slate

Radio/audio news script — regularly scheduled, bulletin or breaking report: “ABC News Radio Top of the Hour News”, written by Robert Hawley; ABC News Radio

Radio/audio news script — analysis, feature or commentary: “The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter,” written by Gail Lee; CBS News Radio

On air promotion: “CBS Comedy,” written by Dan Greenberger; CBS

Times staff writers Stacy Perman and Cerys Davies contributed to this report.

Movie Reviews

‘Heel’ Review: Why Did Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough Sign on for This Contrived Debacle?

Published

17 hours ago

March 8, 2026

Press Room

‘Heel’ Review: Why Did Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough Sign on for This Contrived Debacle?

The original title of “Heel” was “Good Boy.” The new title is probably more accurate, though an even more accurate title might be “Painfully Annoying Punk Idiot.” I jest (a bit), since the title of “Heel” is actually a verb. The film wants to tell the story of a budding hooligan who needs to be brought to heel. That said, does anyone seriously want to see a movie about a 19-year-old British sociopath who gets chained up in a basement so that the weird upper-middle-class couple who’ve kidnapped him can modify his behavior? “Heel” is like “A Clockwork Orange” remade as the year’s worst Sundance movie.

The opening sequence is actually promising. It depicts, in rapidly edited documentary-like montage, a reckless night out on the town by Tommy (Anson Boon) and his friends. They’re hopped-up club kids, and Tommy is their snarling, curly-haired, sexually coercive wastrel ringleader, living in the moment, pouring drinks down his throat, snorting coke and popping pills, dancing and carousing and puking and rutting in the bathroom, pushing himself to a higher and higher high, until he winds up collapsed on the sidewalk — a ritual, we gather, that has happened many times before. Only this time his crumpled body is gathered up by a mysterious stranger.

When Tommy wakes up, he’s in the basement of a stately stone house somewhere in the British countryside. He’s got a metal collar around his neck, and it’s chained to the ceiling. The film has barely gotten started, and already it’s cut to the second half of “A Clockwork Orange”: Can this monster delinquent be rehabilitated? Theoretically, that’s an interesting question, except that the way this happens is so garishly contrived that we can only go with the movie by putting any plea for reality on permanent hold.

Who are the people who have kidnapped Tommy? Chris (Stephen Graham) is a mild chap in a toupee who goes about his mission with a puckish vengeance disguised as gentility. His wife, Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough), is so neurasthenic she’s like a ghost. (She has suffered some trauma that isn’t colored in.) The two have a cherubic preteen son they call Sunshine (Kit Rakusen). And why, exactly, are they doing what they’re doing? We have no idea. Trying to make a bad person into a good person is not, in itself, a terrible notion, but the conceit of “Heel” — that Tommy is locked in a dungeon, being treated like a dog, because that’s what it will take to change him — is like a toxic right-wing fantasy that the film somehow reconfigures into an implausible liberal “family” allegory.

Ah, plausibility! How unhip to gripe about the absence of it. Yet watching “Heel,” I found it impossible to suspend my disbelief for two seconds. The entire movie, directed by the Polish filmmaker Jan Komasa (“Corpus Christie”) from a script by Bartek Bartosik and Naqqash Khalid, is just a grimy monotonous conceit. It’s been thought out thematically but not in terms of recognizable human behavior. It’s like a film-student short stretched out to an agonizing 110 minutes.

Anson Boon, a charismatic actor who did an okay job of playing Johnny Rotten in Danny Boyle’s TV miniseries “Pistol” (though he never conjured Rotten’s homicidal gleam), infuses Tommy with a loutish energy that in the early scenes, at least, makes him a convincing candidate for either prison or the contemporary equivalent of shock therapy. And yet the character is exhaustingly obnoxious. As a filmmaker, Komasa doesn’t dramatize — he uses one-note traits to clobber the audience. Stephen Graham’s Chris is as quiet and circumspect as Tommy is abrasive. He tries to train Tommy by showing him motivational tapes, and by subjecting him to Tommy’s own depraved TikToks. He then rigs up an elaborate system of gutters on the ceiling so that Tommy, in his metal leash, can wander around the house, a sign that he’s been housebroken.

Tommy has to grow and change, since there wouldn’t be a movie otherwise. In the process, he gets less annoying but also less interesting, because “Heel” sentimentalizes his transformation. Komasa seems to have missed the key irony of “A Clockwork Orange”: that the behavior modification of Alex is as brutalizing as his original state of punk anarchy. In “Heel,” Tommy’s evolution is singularly unconvincing — by the end, he’s practically ready to be the suitor in a Jane Austen drama. But that’s all of a piece with a movie so false it puts the audience in the doghouse.