Desire (2017) Review: Beautiful, Erotic, and Controversial

Updated Sept. 14, 2026.

Diego Kaplan’s erotic thriller, Desire, or Desearás al Hombre de Tu Hermana—literally, “You Will Desire Your Sister’s Man”—has been met with controversy since Netflix added it to its American library. In 2018, a conservative commentator said she reported the film to the FBI and other federal authorities because of its provocative opening scene, according to Variety.

Having seen the film, I strongly disagree with the most serious accusations made against it, but I also understand why someone might find this particular scene excessive. Putting the controversy aside, Desire is an exceptionally well-made film exploring the complex relationship between two feuding Argentine sisters, whose sexual appetites—and those of their respective lovers—help fuel their hatred for one another. More than a simple story of adultery, it is about two women who have learned to measure their own desirability by taking attention away from each other.

Stream, rent, or purchase Desire on Amazon.

Set around a rather bourgeois household in Argentina in the late 1960s/early 1970s, Desire opens with the now-infamous scene of two sisters, Ofelia and Lucia, watching a television program. One of the girls imitates the cowboy she sees on screen, pretending that her pillow is a horse. This innocent play inadvertently turns sexual, causing her to collapse in exhaustion before her mother rushes to her aid. While somewhat shocking, this scene is used as a precursor to the woman’s insatiable sexual desire in the future. 

Kaplan maintained that the scene was produced through performance and editing rather than by exposing the young actresses to its sexual implications. He said that the girls were instructed to imitate the movements of a cowboy, did not understand the scene’s adult meaning, and worked under the supervision of their mothers and a child acting coach.

That explanation addresses how the sequence was filmed, but it doesn’t make the finished scene comfortable to watch. The film is deliberately asking an adult audience to interpret an innocent movement sexually. I don’t believe that makes the scene what its harshest critics claimed, but the distinction between what happened during production and what the final edit encourages viewers to imagine is still important.

The sequence is also more than an isolated provocation. It presents Ofelia’s childhood experience as the beginning of the sexual appetite that defines her as an adult. This gives the film’s treatment of desire a strangely deterministic quality. Ofelia does not simply become a woman comfortable with pleasure; the film suggests that her sexuality was awakened before she could understand it and has governed her ever since. That is an interesting idea, though it also reduces much of her identity to one formative sexual moment.

Following this introduction, the story fast-forwards to their adult years. The two sisters have become estranged, but Ofelia (Carolina “Pampita” Ardohain) returns to attend the wedding party for Lucia (Mónica Antonópulos) and her fiancé, Juan (Juan Sorini). Their mother, Carmen (Andrea Frigerio) hosts the lavish party at her home on the beach, where Juan first encounters Ofelia in his bedroom, naked and shivering from jumping in the pool. Juan is instantly enamored with his sister-in-law. 

Meanwhile, Lucia, enraged that her alcoholic and drug-addicted mother invited Ofelia, criticizes Ofelia’s Brazilian fiancee, Andres (Guilherme Winter) for acting boorish at her party. When Carmen falls into the pool due to tripping on LSD, both Lucia and Ofelia jump in after her, each desperate to one-up the other and prove themselves the superior daughter. As the days pass, Ofelia and Lucia’s bitter competition escalates, putting their respective relationships at risk. 

Though Lucia is vital to the story, she plays a secondary role to Ofelia, both in the narrative and from the perspective of the audience. Pampita’s character functions as both the primary object of desire and the main driver of the plot. In essence, she is a sex addict, and a woman that attracts the attention of every man she meets. On the other hand, Lucia, who has found success and a husband that she loves, lacks passion and vitality in comparison. This dichotomy between a sister with the “perfect” life and a sister who lives her life to the fullest underscores their bitter rivalry. 

What makes this rivalry more interesting is that neither sister appears to want anything independently of the other. Ofelia’s attraction to Juan intensifies because he belongs to Lucía. Lucía becomes more possessive because Ofelia wants him. Even when Carmen falls into the pool, the sisters turn their attempt to help her into another opportunity to prove which of them is the more devoted daughter.

Desire in this film is therefore competitive. The characters do not merely want sex, love, or maternal approval. They want the satisfaction of being chosen over someone else. Juan becomes less of a fully developed person than a prize through which Lucía and Ofelia can continue a conflict that began long before either of their current relationships.

A similar dynamic shapes Nathalie…, in which a wife introduces another woman into her marriage and becomes consumed by the erotic story she has helped manufacture. Jealousy does not simply follow betrayal in either film. It helps create the conditions under which betrayal becomes irresistible.

The affair in In Secret is driven by confinement and the desperate desire to escape an intolerable life. Desire is far less tragic in its presentation, but its characters are no freer. They remain controlled by sexual competition, family resentment, and the constant need to prove that they can still command another person’s attention.

With a name like Desire, one imagines a treat for the senses, and Diego Kaplan’s film delivers. The wardrobe, soundtrack, hairstyles, and sets all transport viewers to a different time and place, specifically Argentina in the 1970s. The colors are bright, the people are beautiful, and the sex is passionate. More importantly, the writing and performances all have the surreal feeling of a 1970s key party. Lust drives everything in the film, but you can never really predict what each character will do next.

Though some of the performances are unexceptional (Pampita is known more for her modeling than her acting skills), most of the cast does an admirable job. Each character exudes a certain degree of natural sexual bravado that makes this erotic thriller even more erotic than most. The cinematography combines the sensuality of a softcore film with the lighting, staging, and coloration of 70s European art cinema. This combination of disparate elements will likely make some viewers nostalgic for the better sexploitation films of the past. Much like the films of Radley Metzger, Desire often uses sensual filmmaking techniques and visuals to titillate the audience, rather than explicit sex.

Mónica Antonópulos has argued that the film reverses the traditional erotic gaze by making the man the object of female desire. In an interview with El Día, she described Lucía as a damaged woman who feels radiant when Juan looks at her and diminished whenever his attention moves elsewhere.

The film certainly attempts that reversal. Juan’s body circulates between the sisters as something to be desired, possessed, and stolen. The women have stronger sexual appetites and far more narrative agency than the men. Juan and Andres spend much of the film reacting to forces that Lucía and Ofelia set in motion.

Still, the reversal isn’t complete. Kaplan’s camera remains fascinated by Ofelia’s body, and Pampita’s physical presence supplies much of the film’s erotic spectacle. Juan may be the prize over which the sisters struggle, but Ofelia is the person the audience is most conspicuously invited to watch. Rather than invalidating the film, this contradiction places it somewhere between female sexual liberation and the traditions of sexploitation cinema.

Pedro Almodóvar’s Law of Desire develops a more complicated relationship between erotic freedom and emotional responsibility. Kaplan is working in a deliberately pulpier register. His characters do not interrogate their desires for very long. They throw themselves into them, usually with an enthusiasm bordering on self-destruction.

When I originally reviewed Desire, I was glad that Netflix didn’t cave to the campaign demanding its removal. I still feel that way. The opening scene deserves criticism, but the most extreme accusations surrounding it reduced the entire film to a few uncomfortable minutes while ignoring everything Kaplan was attempting to do.

At the same time, I’m less willing now to wave the sequence away as merely unnecessary controversy. It introduces a genuinely troubling idea about Ofelia’s sexuality and asks the audience to participate in creating a sexual meaning that the young performers themselves didn’t understand. Acknowledging that problem doesn’t require dismissing the rest of the film.

Desire remains a genuinely interesting and beautiful throwback to the era of “free love,” though freedom is not quite what its characters experience. Lucía and Ofelia are governed by jealousy, family resentment, and the attention of other people. Sexuality gives them power, but that power disappears whenever someone else becomes more desirable.

Ultimately, though not every viewer will agree, the superior visuals, extravagant performances, and 1960s and ’70s nostalgia more than compensate for the awkward and uncomfortable scenes. The film is lurid, excessive, and occasionally ridiculous, but those qualities are integral to its appeal. Very few films look or feel quite like it.

Desire (2017) Rating: ★★★★ out of 5

If you’d like to watch Desire (2017), it may be available on Netflix in your region, or you can stream, rent, or purchase it via Amazon.