Director:
Fina Torre
Cast:
Penelope Cruz, Mark Feuerstein, Murilo Benecio, Murilo Benicio,
Harold Perrineau, Jr
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Rating: (1 to 5
stars)
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Official
Web Site
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Review:
Just what we need! A pagan romantic comedy! Won't the Catholic
League for Civil and Religious Rights be thrilled!!! What we've
got here is what's called "magical realism," where the
unusual happens to normal people and the Devil is nowhere to be
seen.
Vera Blasi's script tells the story of one Isabella
Oliveira(Penelope Cruz), a beautiful young woman from Bahia, NE
Brazil, who has an unusual form of motion sickness, she can only
travel in cars when she's driving, and can only have sex when
she's on top. She's in love with her husband Toninho(Murilo
Benicio), her partner in a successful restaurant, but he's a bit
on the unappreciative side, and when she finds him in bed with
another woman, she decides to leave.
So, after consulting with Yenanaja, the Santaria goddess of the
sea, she heads off for San Francisco, CA, where here best friend
Monica Jones(Harold Perrineau Jr.), a drag queen with no Brazilian
accent at all, is currently living. After giving the goddess a
piece of his mind, Toninho and his mariachi band are in pursuit.
Yenanaja is a major character in this piece of fluff, her power
pervades the entire film. It is she who brings Isabella together
with TV producer Cliff Lloyd(Mark Feuerstein) in a really silly
way. Together they get the station chief(John De Lancie) to give
Isabella and Monica a cooking show on TV and as the gods are with
her, it's a major hit.
Just when everything seems to be going will, along comes
Toninho and the band, who start serenading her wherever she is.
They are soon added to the show, after a full dress musical number
in the local jail. But, Isabella has sacrificed an omelet to
Yenanaja to take away her love for Toninho. So will romance be
rekindled in the normal way or must there be more divine
intervention?
Penelope Cruz, who was last seen in Almodivor's "All About
My Mother" manages to get her mouth around the foreign
English language with skill and style, Murilo Benicio is just as
good. They have real chemistry together, and it's th ey, more than
anything else which makes this extremely silly movie work. It's
worth the price of a matinee.
Eric Lurio
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