A bunch of old broads drinking tea may not sound like the most exciting premise for a film, but the wonderful, sensitive, and utterly talented Chilean director Maite Alberdi makes TEA TIME not only fascinating but required viewing. Viewers are let in on an intimate and exclusive tradition. For decades, a small group of women has been meeting once a week, without fail, for tea and intricately iced confections that look to die for. Friends since the 1950s, Maite's grandmother and the other women have lived through births and deaths, marriages and divorces, dictatorships and revolutions, and all the joys and tragedies of the crazy thing called life. The one constant is their friendship and a monthly cup of tea. They reunite over cookies, cakes, and a hot cup of tea and discuss everything under the sun: grandchildren, aging, gender roles, and sexuality, to name a few. They laugh, bicker, discuss, cry, pray, gossip, and debate. Shot with close-ups of the women as they do all these things, you feel like you're right there with them at the table, part of the gang. It's an amazing experience to watch a group of women who know each other down to their cores, know each other's lives nearly as well as they know their own, just be together. And while they're at an age with more years behind than ahead, each monthly meeting is precious. As the film is shot over the course of four years, viewers stick with the group through the loss of its own members. Their numbers may dwindle, but their friendship holds steadfast.

And to sum it all up, a quote from Judy Blume I feel accurately embodies the essence of this film: "When we're together the years fall away. Isn't that what matters? To have someone who can remember with you?"