Real Women Have Curves (2002)
For a long time while watching it,
I really hated this film. Lupe Ontiveros, star of
"Chuck
and Buck" and "Storytelling,"
plays a horrible, one-dimensional, irritating, poorly
drawn and stereotypical character. We never get her
motivation and seems forever before we understand
why her daughter, Ana, the protagonist of the film,
puts up with her bullshit. Sure, it's a Hispanic family
and that culture is very different from my own. But
it is fifteen annoying minutes into this film before
Ontiveros' mother character does anything remotely
motherly to make us understand that she is more than
just a complete and total bitch. By this time, it's
way too late to start liking her - or forgiving her
- or understanding her!
Another huge problem with this film
is the idea that Ana is just graduating from high
school and can't afford to go to college. Supposedly,
with just a little nudging from a high school teacher
and mentor, she fills out an application and writes
a two-page essay and before summer is over - gets
a full scholarship to Columbia University. Yeah right!
That's the biggest load of horseshit I've seen in
a film in quite a while. The scripters here are just
too lazy to work on the script and make stuff believable
and justifiable. Ana could have been a really good
student and wanted to go to college and be working
for it all her high school career and the events that
take place that are seemingly going to keep her from
college could still take place and it would be a thousand
time more believable. Who writes a fucking two page
essay during the summer after they graduate and gets
a FULL scholarship to fucking Columbia university?
That's just fucking stupid.
Still, as "Real Women Have Curves"
plays out, it becomes more and more likeable. By far
it is the charm of lead actress America Ferrera that
makes us want to root for this film. Her character,
like Ferrera herself, is a bit of a large woman, but
her self-assurance and intelligence make her one of
the most charming and desirable females I have ever
seen on the screen. We have to see that Ana is, in
fact, beautiful, and we do. Ferrera makes it obvious.
It doesn't hurt, either, that Ana
has a little romance with Jimmy (Brian Sites, who
played Tug, the teenager with a crush on Ellen Degeneres
in TV's "The Ellen Show"). As a cute, coming-of-age
teenager himself, Jimmy is all sweetness and awe.
(I love the little hair-is-just-starting-to-grow-on-my-
chin goatee thingee he has here). He loves Ana and
finds her beautiful. This has to work for the film
to work and Sites is simply perfection in his romantic
attributes. Plus, he's just adorable to look at. You
will swoon. Ana does.
Ingrid Oliu as Ana's sister Estella
is also quite good. The script does her only partial
justice, but her working woman trying to make a living
is quite nice. It's too bad that she and most of the
other older female characters here start as stereotypical
bitches in the film before they warm up a little and
we begin to like them.
Although the script to this rather
poor little film is a piece of shit, it does have
one empowering scene with the numerous female characters
who work at Estella's dress shop, including Ana, that
makes the entire film work. This is the climax of
the film and I don't want to give it away. But it
is a wonderful moment and one of the many nice touches
here that salvage this film from the dung heap. The
final scene with ana walking on the street is also
a gem.
The problems with the film stem
first and foremost from the script. I understand Ontiveros'
arc now, having seen how her character ends the film,
but watching her bitch and moan her way thorough this
film is annoying as hell. You just want to slap the
shit out of her. And not because she's annoying. But
because she is annoying with no motivation. We never
understand this character. She is poorly drawn and
Ontiveros apparently does not have the skill it takes
to make us understand her. It makes this film as irritating
as a flea buzzing in your ear.
There is a lot of stupid stuff in
here. Everyone shits on Ana for the first 30 minutes.
I hate films like that. Sure, she gets her due at
the film's end, but why do the other characters in
the film have to start as such unlikable, disagreeable,
pissy bitches and assholes? Oh yeah, Cause the scripters,
Josefina Lopez and George LaVoom, suck. They don't
know what they are doing half the time here. They
don't know how to write fully rounded characters.
Estella's dress shop is a wonderful
place for the action to take place but Estella's problems
with running the place are ludicrous and unrealistic.
Plus, Ana goes to her father for a loan to bail out
Estella and he gives her one. But part of the plot
is that they don't have the money for Ana to go to
college because they need her at the dress factory.
So how does the dad have the money to help Estella?
It made no sense to me at all. The leaps in logic
in this film sometimes are imbecilic.
But Ferrera makes this average film
something to see. She's great. Sites is great as her
love interest. It just hard to watch this piece knowing
that with some work and polish it could have been
a really fine and important film. And that Spanish
music flourishing on the score. Why, it's more annoying
that Ontiveros' mother character.
Note:
In English and occasional Spanish
with subtitles.
Also with George Lopez.
Directed by Patricia Cardoso. Based
on Josefina Lopez's play.
