Feminices (2004)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Domingos de Oliveira

Writers:

Clarice Niskier (play)
Domingos de Oliveira (writer)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Four actresses in their mid-forties get together in the afternoon to write a play about their own experiences. But the director isn't satisfied with the outcome.

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Dedina Bernardelli	...	Isabel
Domingos de Oliveira	...	Mariano
Cacá Mourthé	...	Babi
Clarice Niskier	...	Eugênia
Priscilla Rozenbaum	...	Diana

Runtime:

72 min

Country:

Brazil

Language:

Portuguese

Color:

Black and White | Color

Certification:

Brazil:14

Pretentious Narcissism

In Rio de Janeiro, the actresses of forty and something years Diana (Priscilla Rozenbaum), Isabel (Dedina Bernardelli), Eugênia (Clarice Niskier) and Babi (Cacá Mourthé) reunite to write a play about their life experience. Along the afternoon, they disclose confidences about their lovers, husbands, affairs and personal and professional lives. But the director and Diana's husband Mariano (Domingos de Oliveira) is not satisfied with the story, since he believes that women in the mid-forties do not confess the truth about their feelings.

I bought this DVD expecting a good kind of tropical story à la "Sex and the City", with four women from Rio de Janeiro of forty and something years and their "adventures" in the wonderful city. Unfortunately I found a boring and pretentious exposition of Narcissism of Domingos de Oliveira, in the role of an intellectual director that is always right in his shallow arguments, even when he totally changes his opinion. The insecure and submissive Babi is concerned with her relationship with Theo; Eugênia with Guido; Bel with Caco; and the ambiguous Diana with Mariano, but all of them in a very confused way and going nowhere. The style of documentary does not present any worthwhile opinion or advice in the interviews, and the messy use of black-and-white alternating with color has no explanation. The charming actresses are excellent and deserved a better movie but the screenplay is absolutely weak and pointless. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Feminices" ("Feminine Things")