my fault It was the “most viewed non-English speaking film on Prime Video” until November 2024, according to the platform, which does not provide specific data on the number of viewings. The second part, Your fault, It was number one worldwide the weekend of its release last December. They are the first two adaptations of the trilogy Guilty (Montena, Penguin Random House), written by the Argentine author living in Spain Mercedes Ron (31 years old), which has accumulated more than three million copies sold worldwide. This youth phenomenon tells the story of Noah and Nick, ages 17 and 22. They meet when her mother and his father get married and the new family begins to live in a mansion on the Spanish coast. At first they hate each other. But before long, these two handsome young men begin to like each other. This is a classic story of forbidden love, although in the middle of the fourth feminist wave it tries to make a difference with respect to all previous versions of this romantic myth: breaking stereotypes about toxic love, while destigmatizing the known gender. as young adult (for young people). That is, put an end once and for all to that prejudice that adheres as superglue to any cultural product that girls like.
“There is a part of this film that is repeated generation after generation because it works: romantic love,” explains Nicole Wallace (22 years old), the leading actress. “Honestly, I’m not fascinated by this message. The difference is that Noah is not that girl who always needs a boy to save her. She is an example of a female protagonist with whom today’s girls can feel a little more represented, even admire. And so, by the way, I don’t feel terrible,” says one of the most important young performers in Spanish audiovisuals. Since the premiere of Your fault, Last December, he added one million more followers, reaching almost eight on Instagram, and more than two on TikTok, where he has more than 11 million. He has just finished filming a new adaptation of The house of the spirits, by Isabel Allende.
Noah’s character laughs at romantic love. “It’s a trap,” she tells her best friend. When Nick gives her a hickey, he reminds her that “she’s not a cow from the Leister (main character’s last name) farm.” He gets into fights. Drive souped-up cars in illegal races with the same skill as a kid. Read and study Philology at university. “My female characters have super clear ideas and do not allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the bad boy even though they feel attracted to him. We have all gone through that phase,” explains Ron, who has participated in the audiovisual adaptation.
“At the same time, Nick had to be respectful towards women,” says Sofía Cuenca, screenwriter of the films. “We also had to avoid toxicity in love, sometimes that’s what we tend to do in youth literature books. We are already socially leaving this type of relationship and we couldn’t take it to entertainment,” adds Domingo González, director of the trilogy.
Guilty It is for generation Z what could be Dusk, Three meters above the sky y 10 reasons to hate you for millennials. That is, their representation in books and movies of what their first love should be like and the romantic aspirations that these first encounters generate among adolescents. “The impact is total on this type of audience because they are at a time in their lives when they believe that love can do anything, it is highly idealized,” González explains. For this reason, both Ron and the Prime Video team assure that the guideline has always been to “treat viewers with respect, not in a disdainful way because it is a very young audience.”
The figures protect this phenomenon, but its protagonists, they explain, continue to receive some criticism — “less and less,” all the people interviewed agree — for dedicating themselves to a genre that has always been considered by the public and a part of the publishing and audiovisual industry. seen as “inferior”, in Ron’s words. “It is still considered that way, but I don’t care. I am a young woman who has made a name for herself in the publishing industry and I can give an example to thousands of girls who want to dedicate themselves to writing these types of stories. There are people who tell me that they got hooked on reading with my books. With all the good things that are happening to me, I don’t care about these comments,” explains the author.
“Any young or independent actress would have accepted a role like Noah,” Wallace adds. “I have to eat, pay rent, work like anyone else. “This is a super fun project in which as an actress I have grown and learned a lot, and which has also opened many doors for me.” The director and screenwriter join in: “It would be nice if all those adults who criticize made at least the effort to see them.” Some mothers, say those responsible for the films, are already watching the films with their daughters. “We have tried to broaden the age of the audience we reach by adding adult plots,” says González. “Still, although changes are happening, we have not yet reached that point of respect for these films.”
Fandom management
He fandom (the group of people who share their passion for a cultural phenomenon) Guilty He is also relentless because he knows by heart every detail of these books that have been circulating on the internet since 2017. Ron began to write my fault on Wattpad, the digital self-publishing platform. A story that, as he has told on more than one occasion, is inspired “by a Taylor Swift video clip and a trip to Los Angeles.” Every day he published a chapter and the fans became hooked. It reached 71 million views in this space; In 2023 alone it accumulated 52.9 million readings of my fault. It was then that the story of Noah and Nick became a trilogy and caught the attention of the Montena publishing house.
The books have been translated into English by the publisher Sourcebooks and the second installment of the saga entered the best-seller list of The New York Times. In June 2023, the first Spanish adaptation premiered on Prime Video. The second arrived last December. And next February 13, the British version, My Fault: Londoncan be seen in more than 240 countries (including Spain) on this platform.
The expectation, therefore, when the audiovisual adaptation was announced was maximum. “It has been impossible to find a dark-skinned Nick with blue eyes,” laughs María Contreras, head of films and series at Amazon MGM Studios for Spain, who has devised the promotional campaigns for the films “monitoring the conversation on social networks.” In June 2023, they gathered hundreds of people at Madrid City Hall for an event where the cast of the film was announced. Nicole Wallace and Gabriel Guevara passed the most difficult filter, the approval of fans who had been there for months, says Domingo González, publishing their own trailers for future films with their favorite actors on social networks.
Prime Video created #GuiltyWednesdays on its Instagram account to distribute information about the movies. In addition, some of the actors embarked on a world tour in which they presented the first film at large events and after this screening, they allowed fans to see a few minutes of the second part. Last December, more than 4,000 people filled the Vistalegre palace (Madrid) for the premiere of Your fault, to which the protagonists arrived in racing cars.
More complicated, Ron admits, has been managing the adaptation of thousands of pages to audiovisual footage. “The books serve to complete the plots that are missing in the movies,” says the author, assuming that sometimes her followers have not been very benevolent with the selection of the movie sequences. “It’s a fandom very critical and very loyal, obsessive and territorial,” says Wallace, “he can love you for a moment, lift you up, make you feel like the most incredible person in the world and the next day destroy you. Everyone has expectations and it is something I cannot control. “I am calm with the work I have done.”