delicate

Early in “Romería,” the film’s main character, Marina, is asked by some children if she’s ever seen the Santa Compaña, a collection of ghosts who, in Spanish legend, supposedly wander in a pack across the landscape. Humoring the kids, Marina says she hasn’t. That’s good, one of the girls responds. “They’re spirits that can’t die.”

As it happens, Marina is actually on a journey of sorts to connect with the dead — and so is Spanish writer-director Carla Simón, whose third feature is an autobiographical tale about her own quest to make peace with her late parents. Slender but flecked with magical touches, “Romería” is so gentle it never quite qualifies as haunting. Nonetheless, Simón stirs up the ineffable sadness that comes with wanting answers to the mysteries of your family — and then, like it or not, receiving them.

Newcomer Llúcia Garcia plays Marina, an 18-year-old aspiring filmmaker. It’s July 2004, and she’s traveled to the picturesque port city of Vigo to obtain government paperwork that will make her eligible for a university scholarship. She never knew her father Alfonso, who died in 1987. For some reason, there are no records indicating that she was his daughter. Hence the trip to Vigo to see her paternal grandparents for the first time so she can authenticate her ancestry.

Simón, whose previous features “Summer 1993” and “Alcarràs” also grappled with family matters, follows along with Marina on the way to this anxious meeting. Marina’s mother died only a few years after Alfonso, making Marina an orphan. But the mom’s parting gift, a diary, provides opaque glimpses into her life with Alfonso in the mid-1980s. Before Marina arrives at her grandparents’ home, though, she must run a gauntlet of uncles, aunts and cousins, their reactions to her existence varying from warm to wary. Repeatedly, Marina is told she looks just like her mom, but the comment occasionally contains a trace of bitterness. Many of these new faces view her as an unwelcome reminder of a past they’d prefer to forget. When they see Marina, it’s like they’re looking at a ghost.

The strongest component of Garcia’s doe-like performance is the way it captures someone in the midst of shedding her adolescence, gingerly trying on adulthood. Over the course of a few days, this bashful teen, always armed with her camcorder and far less free-spirited than her cousins, will be beset by her father’s feuding family. Silently observing the passive-aggressive maelstrom, Marina will receive an intense immersion in what her life might have been like if he’d lived.

But she quickly realizes that their memories of the man are far from perfect. No one can decide exactly where Alfonso lived in Vigo. And, more troublingly, Marina’s belief that he died in 1987 is contradicted by relatives, who insist that it was five years later. If Marina has that information wrong, what else does she not know?

“Romería” is hardly the first film in which an impressionable soul goes on the hunt for the parents she never had. Likewise, viewers will not be startled when Marina eventually discovers painful secrets about her mom and dad that cause her to reconsider those phantom figures.

Simón, who undertook a similar odyssey at the same age, never allows this delicate story to succumb to self-indulgence or an inflated sense of its own importance. Instead, her film is suffused with a rich, casual immediacy. Simón and her star bracingly recall the electricity of youth as Marina prepares for life as an artist. The movie, in part, is about how she finds her voice.

Simón’s films favor naturalism and “Romería” leaves ample room for Spain’s seaside beauty and glorious sunshine. The calming locales both complement and contradict the plot’s revelations, which are hardly bombshells but do speak to how well-to-do families labor to shove inconvenient skeletons into the closet. If anything, Marina will be more shocked by her grandparents (José Ángel Egido and Marina Troncoso), whose fiercely icy demeanor suggests this teenager should consider herself lucky not to have grown up around them.

Because “Romería” is a coming-of-age story, Marina will be tempted by cute boys; she’ll also begin to display a rebellious streak. As the picture rolls along, Garcia shows a more assertive side, relishing her character’s emergence from her shell. But this modest saga saves its biggest surprise for its final reels, when the narrative folds in on itself beguilingly, allowing Marina to relate to her mom and dad in ways she never had before. Maybe we can never truly know our parents, but if we’re lucky, we can gain the maturity to one day see them in ourselves.

WASHINGTON — Two and a half centuries after the American colonies declared independence from Britain under King George III, his descendant King Charles III lands in Washington on Monday with trans-Atlantic ties under strain and security in the spotlight.

A shooting at a Washington dinner attended by President Trump on Saturday sparked a last-minute security review of the four-day state visit, intended to celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary, and the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship.”

Buckingham Palace said the king “is greatly relieved to hear that the president, first lady and all guests have been unharmed.” After a security review, the palace said the trip “will proceed as planned.”

Trump praises the king but derides Starmer

A rift between the U.K. government and Trump over issues including the Iran war had already raised the political stakes for the British monarch’s visit.

In recent weeks, Trump has lambasted Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his unwillingness to join U.S. military attacks on Iran, dismissing Britain’s leader as “not Winston Churchill,” the World War II prime minister who coined the phrase “special relationship” for the U.K.-U.S. bond.

It’s part of a wider rift between Trump and the United States’ NATO allies, whom he has called “cowards” and “useless” for not joining action against Iran. A leaked Pentagon email suggested the U.S. could reassess support for the U.K.’s sovereignty over the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic. Britain and Argentina fought a 1982 war over the islands, also known as the Islas Malvinas.

The president insists the political chill won’t affect the royal visit. Charles “has nothing to do with that,” Trump said in March, meaning NATO.

The president has spoken in glowing terms about Charles, repeatedly referring to the monarch as his “friend” and a “great guy.”

He also continues to mention his “amazing” trip to the U.K. in September with first lady Melania Trump for an unprecedented second state visit. Starmer hand-delivered the invitation from the king in the Oval Office five weeks after Trump returned to office, in a very public attempt to woo the Republican president.

The U.K. royal family laid on pomp and pageantry for the Trumps, with scarlet-clad guardsmen, brass bands and a sumptuous banquet at Windsor Castle.

“President Trump has always had great respect for King Charles, and their relationship was further strengthened by the president’s historic visit to the United Kingdom last year,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Associated Press. “The president looks forward to a special visit by Their Majesties, which will include a beautiful state dinner and multiple events throughout the week.”

Trump, meanwhile, told the BBC that the king’s visit could “absolutely” help repair the trans-Atlantic relationship.

“He’s fantastic. He’s a fantastic man. Absolutely the answer is yes,” the president said.

Some have called for the trip to be canceled

Kristofer Allerfeldt, a University of Exeter professor specializing in American history, said the two governments have very different objectives for the trip.

He said that for Charles, the trip is about “reinforcing long-term ties, showcasing the monarchy’s soft power and reminding the world that Britain still carries diplomatic weight.”

For Trump, it’s more about “a media event,” with emphasis on the optics of a visit that resembles a meeting of “two gilded monarchs.”

Some U.K. politicians worry that the trip is fraught with opportunities for embarrassment. Trump’s recent broadsides at Pope Leo XIV have heightened those concerns.

Ed Davey, leader of the U.K. centrist opposition Liberal Democrats party, earlier this month called Trump “a dangerous and corrupt gangster” and implored the government to cancel the trip.

“I really fear for what Trump might say or do while our king is forced to stand by his side,” Davey said in the House of Commons. “We cannot put His Majesty in that position.”

Starmer defended the visit, saying “the monarchy, through the bonds that it builds, is often able to reach through the decades” and bolster important relationships.

Andrew and Epstein cast a shadow

Raising the stakes is the shadow of the king’s younger brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who has been stripped of his royal title of Prince Andrew, exiled from public life and put under police investigation over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. He has denied committing any crimes.

Epstein victims have urged the king to meet with them and other sexual abuse survivors. It’s unlikely he will do so.

Charles has visited the U.S. 19 times, but this is his first state visit to the country since becoming king in 2022. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, made four state visits to the U.S.

The king, who is 77 and was diagnosed in early 2024 with an undisclosed form of cancer, will spend four days in the U.S. accompanied by Queen Camilla.

In Washington, the king and queen will have a private tea with the Trumps and attend a garden party and a formal White House state dinner. The president and the king will also have a one-on-one meeting.

The royal couple will also visit the Sept. 11 memorial in New York and attend a 250th birthday block party in Virginia, where Charles will also meet Indigenous leaders involved in nature conservation — a favorite cause of the environmentalist king.

Three centuries after Britain’s kings and queens gave up any real political power, the royals remain symbols of soft power, deployed by elected governments to smooth international relationships and send messages about what the U.K. considers important.

A key moment will be the king’s speech to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday. It’s only the second time, after Queen Elizabeth II in 1991, that a U.K. monarch has addressed a joint meeting of both houses.

Elizabeth praised liberalism on that trip, spoke against the idea that “power grows from the barrel of a gun” and praised the “rich ethnic and cultural diversity of both our societies.”

The king’s treasured causes, including the environment and harmony among religious faiths, are in contrast to Trump’s. He’s unlikely to accentuate differences, but Allerfeldt said that, in the monarch’s subtle way, the king could use his speech to send a message.

“He does have an unorthodox way of looking at the world, and I think maybe he can actually have something valid to say when he addresses Congress,” Allerfeldt said.

Superville and Lawless write for the Associated Press. Jill Lawless reported from London.