Review of Real Women Have Curves

Introduction

Ana (Ferrera) is a Mexican-American girl who has just completed high school. Living in East L.A. with a hardworking blue collar family, Ana`s graduation from an upscale school in Beverly Hills is heralded as a huge accomplishment. At least, that`s the way her English teacher and mentor, Mr. Guzman (Lopez) sees it. He would like Ana to apply to college as he feels that she is a smart and talented student. But Ana`s deeply traditional mother, Carmen (Ontiveros), insists that she stay at home and help her sister working in a dressmaking factory. Ana is strong-willed and sometimes defiant, but she accepts her mother`s instructions and works at the factory, simultaneously applying to Columbia University. The sweatshop that her sister operates opens Ana`s eyes to the injustices of business. She sees how her sister is mistreated and underpaid by the Bloomingdale`s executives who have contracted her to make their dresses. Dresses that cost the factory $18 to make are sold at Bloomingdales for $600, and Ana questions where all that money goes. She also awakens her mother, sister, and co-workers to the idea that they are more than just pretty pictures or wives or mothers - they are real people with a lot to offer and they shouldn`t be mislead by the body image promoted by stores like Bloomingdales that mass-produce clothing in small sizes for thin women. In the end, Ana learns a lot about herself, her family, and even romance, on her way to seeing herself as a woman.

Video

The video is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and is of a reasonable standard, adequately reproducing the filmmaker`s vision on the small screen. The image is vibrant, stable and has limited grain and almost no sign of dirt.

The film is set in eastern Los Angeles and offers some nice urban scenes and makes good use of location.

Audio

The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo), and like the video is of a reasonable standard, with little in the way of technical deficiencies, although suffering from a rather serious practical one...

The film is badly let down by a bi-lingual soundtrack - English and Spanish - with NO subtitles. In practice, this means that during almost all of the scenes when Ana is conversing with her family, if like me you don`t speak Spanish, you`ll be guessing at what is being said. Scenes when she is speaking to her teacher, boyfriend, school mates are in English. Now I don`t have any problem with filmmakers realistically representing the use of language, however not to have subtitles available during the Spanish scenes means that a lot of people will quickly tire of the film.

Features

The only extra on the disc is the film`s trailer, accessed through functional but dull menus.

Conclusion

My enjoyment of what promised to be a good film was spoiled somewhat by my inability to understand the dialogue in the numerous family argument scenes - although you can grasp the gist of what is going on, having subtitles to match dialogue to the facial expressions would have made such a difference to the movie - with any luck this omission will be rectified for the retail release.

As it stands, this is a well made film with a fresh and effective cast that tells the story of a Mexican-American girl trying to break free and stand on her own two feet - even with just half of the dialogue available to me,

The video and sound are both good, but the range of extras are disappointing.

In summary, a good movie let down by the lack of subtitles, unless you are fluent in Spanish, I suggest checking out the back of the box before buying to see if they`ve been added to the retail release.