I recently saw this at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Although nothing to do with film the name Mata Hara has become synonymous with female spies or femme fatal's as she was a Dutch exotic dancer who was convicted and executed by the French in world War I, accused of being a German spy. So here in this film we have three female private detectives thus the stretch of the name Mataharis as the film title. In this modern story set in Madrid, Eva (Najwa Nimri) is the married mother of two assigned to a rather mundane case of tracking down an old man's first love and who because of her detective skills has stumbled upon the possibility that her husband Iñaki (Tristán Ulloa) may not only be having an affair but leading a double life with another wife and family. Carmen (Nuria González) is assigned to a case by a man who believes his business partner is doing unreported company work on the side only to find out he's got something else going on the side too. Inés (María Vásquez) is the detective agencies youngest agent and she is assigned to work undercover as a factory employee to spy on the activities of it union bosses only to fall in love with one who she is supposed to be spying on. It's a great cast and a very realistic story from actress turned writer/director Icia Bollain and co written by Tatiana Rodrigues. Bollain directs. Nice photography from cinematographer Kiko De La Rica. It's kind of like a Lifetime for Women movie channel movie but hey, I like Lifetime for Women movies and I could actually see someone remaking this in the USA as an English language movie for television. I would give this a 7.5 out of 10 and recommend it.
