by Rhian Hibner
Daily Lobo
Indie art films have become formulaic.
This becomes incredibly clear in "La Mujer de mi Hermano," or in English, "My Brother's Wife." If anyone has ever written a step-by-step guide on how to make repetitive boring art films, that writer would certainly be pleased today.
Director Ricardo de Montreuil's problem is not that he has made a bad movie. His problem is that he has made the same movie that several hundred directors before him have made.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
There is not much originality in "My Brother's Wife." The plot is predictable in spite of a twist in the last 20 minutes of the film. It involves the story of Zoe, her infertile husband Ignacio, and his all-too-fertile brother Gonzalo. Ignacio never seems to be particularly interested in his wife. She senses this and begins to spend more time with Gonzalo. Their affair continues until he reveals his basic immaturity toward the end of the film. Zoe is then left alone. Only her flamboyantly gay friend Boris remains to give her moral support. The chain of events in the film lead to a fairly predictable ending.
It is easy to dislike this film based on its lack of originality. It is hard to dislike it when one judges the performance of the actors.
B†rbara Mori's performance as Zoe is not perfect. She is more than adequate for the role. It is not a life-changing performance, but it is a convincing one. The neglect her character feels is obvious and believable to the viewer. Mori is good at conveying her depression and sense of abandonment through her facial expressions. She is not quite as good at delivering dialogue.
In a similar vein, Manolo Cardona's Gonzalo is imperfect but believable. Gonzalo is a character who comes across as the stereotypical annoying little brother grown large rather than older. The film does a fairly good job of making the viewer wonder why Gonzalo acts immature and inconstant in his affections for Zoe.
Unfortunately, not all of the performances in this film are as good as they could have been. Christian Meier comes across as flat and uninspired in his portrayal of Ignacio. It is hard to care about Meier's character, even at the end of the film when he is revealed to be far more complex than he first appears. The problem is with Meier and not with the character. A more skilled actor could have saved this character.
In a similar vein, Bruno Bichir's flamboyantly gay character Boris is a clichÇd joke. He is an unoriginal and uninspired ripoff of most of the cast of "Will and Grace." The only difference is that Boris' lisp is in Spanish rather than English.
"La Mujer de mi Hermano" manages to accomplish only two remarkable feats in Spanish-language film-making. The problem is that neither of those feats are in any way related to plot, characterization or cinematography. This film has somehow managed to get the widest release of a Spanish-language film in U.S. history, and it has done so using one of the most tired and clichÇd plot lines in the history of independent cinema. The only remarkable thing is the language in which the film was made. All in all, an entirely forgettable film.
"La Mujer de mi Hermano"
Now Playing
Grade: C-
