20,000 Species of Bees review: Soul-soothing Spanish drama to change hearts and minds

A quick Google News search of the term ‘trans children’ shows the challenging, complicated state of play for this most vulnerable section of our community today. Ignoring hateful stories and focusing on supportive ones: ‘Trans youth will no longer be prescribed puberty blockers, NHS England says,’ reads one recent headline; ‘Southern anti-trans laws are uprooting families – and leaving them with impossible choices,’ reads another.

It’s often necessary – indeed, vital – for ‘hard news’ to focus on science and politics. But the noise can be exhausting. And ironically, for the kids in question (or the ones without phones, anyway) such ‘conversations’ are a million miles away. As a former queer child myself, this reviewer can only assume that, for trans kids, the conversation is mostly internal, and, if articulated to friends and family, potentially as simple as: ‘This is who I am. This is how I feel.’

One charming scene in Spanish coming-of-age drama 20,000 Species of Bees – the name a verbal challenge, but a fitting metaphor for the gender spectrum – perfectly captures this potential. In it, two children bathe before the storybook beauty of a Basque Country waterfall, one accepting the other’s transness without hesitation. “There’s a boy in my class with a fanny. It’s cute!” So cute, so casual, so utterly indifferent. The audience at yesterday’s BFI Flare screening laughed out loud. You sense the scene’s potential to change hearts and minds, and it’s a relief to watch it. It’s also a relief to take in the painterly quality of the Spanish landscapes. Who needs a holiday when you can watch a film?!

That’s not to say eight-year-old Lucia, played by transfixing child actor Sofía Otero, gets an easy ride. She understandably throws many a fabulous tantrum. (How many kids can control their tantrums, let alone act them on cue?) But it’s actually the adults around her who throw the biggest hissy fits, mostly in response to her burgeoning identity. Her well-meaning mother Ane, for example – a permanently frazzled but always earthily real Patricia López Arnaiz – and her ignorant, deluded grandmother Lita, played with kindness and meanness by Itziar Lazkano; a difficult combination to pull off, but true of many conflicted family members of LGBTQ people. 

‘Just chill out’ you want to tell them. It would be better coming from Lourdes, an older relative of Lucia’s, who works as a beekeeper. With her innate understanding of nature, and as one of Lucia’s few adult allies, she guides her (and the audience) to a higher plane of understanding. In one transcendent scene, when the child becomes panicked by a swarm of bees, she soothes her. The character veers close to Earth Mother archetype, but played as she is with goddess-like tranquillity by Ane Gabarain, the viewer is swept away. When she bathes naked in a stream, you want to throw your clothes off and join her. 

Sofía is the beating heart of the film, however, telegramming wide-eyed wonder one-minute, sardonic defiance the next, followed by terror and finally, hard-won insight into herself. No wonder she, in 2023, became the youngest-ever winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for this performance. 

Thank goodness for beautifully immersive, human, and heartfelt movies like this one, that make the heaviness of the news agenda melt away.