You could dismiss this swankily shot Latin American trifle as an upscale soap opera, but that would be an insult to soap operas.
La Mujer de mi Hermano (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:39
Fresh:8
Rotten:31
Average Rating:4.3/10
Consensus: No better than an R-rated "telenovela," with the requisite love triangle involving uncommonly attractive players and banal plotlines.
Theatrical Release:Apr 14, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $2,752,399
Synopsis: An international cast of beauties brings cosmopolitan flavor to what could have been a typical melodrama. Adapted from the best-selling novel by Peruvian author Jaime Bayly, LA MUJER DE MI HERMANO... An international cast of beauties brings cosmopolitan flavor to what could have been a typical melodrama. Adapted from the best-selling novel by Peruvian author Jaime Bayly, LA MUJER DE MI HERMANO (English translation--MY BROTHER'S WIFE) is a soap-operatic tale, complete with adulterous transgressions, hysterical breakdowns, devastating betrayals, and a shocking finale. Stunning Uruguayan actress Barbara Mori is the focal point of this Byzantine affair, entrancing viewers with her nuanced performance as Zoe. In the tradition of those Douglas Sirk heroines who made it a gorgeous act to suffer quietly, Zoe is wildly unhappy and frustrated with her dying marriage to Ignacio (Peruvian soap star Christian Meier). Not content to remain isolated in her high-class Mexico city apartment--a stylishly cold fortress of minimalist design and shiny surfaces--Zoe seeks out Ignacio's estranged brother Gonzalo (Colombian hunk Manolo Cardona). A volatile artist, Gonzalo is a man of sensations and extremes, thus serving as the perfect antidote to Zoe's dull, stale life. The two strike up the inevitable passionate affair, but what follows is as unexpected as the set-up is standard. Zoe's transgression leads not only to her debilitating Catholic guilt, but also to a revived relationship between the brothers, whose new communication brings a startling revelation about the past. Peruvian director Ricardo de Montreuil leads this production with a sure hand, eliciting performances more complex than in the typical soap opera. Though it can veer toward slightly over-the-top melodrama, the film is too intelligently written and acted to be passed off as fluff, and instead is a serious, deep look into the eternal problems of love, sexuality, and betrayal. [More]
Starring: Barbara Mori, Christian Meier, Angelica Aragon, Bruno Bichir
Starring: Barbara Mori, Christian Meier, Angelica Aragon, Bruno Bichir
Director: Ricardo de Montreuil
Director: Ricardo de Montreuil
Screenwriter: Jamie Bayly
Producer: Stan Jakubowicz
Studio: Lions Gate Films
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Reviews for La Mujer de mi Hermano
There's also a tiresome, warmed-over feel to all the revelations -- one of which, a whopper, is never really resolved -- and the flat dialogue and one-dimensional characters make it impossible to care.
Repressed desire! A sultry soap-opera star! Incest! Gay politics! La Mujer de Mi Hermano has it all. Now if it only had a decent plot.
The secrets behind the brothers' long estrangement are revealed in hallowed soap opera tradition, and the improbable ending to the film almost demands further installments.
La Mujer de Mi Hermano neither looks nor feels like the Mexican telenovela that it fundamentally is. That makes the movie interesting. More interesting than the sudsy story it tells, anyway.
The film is the cinematic equivalent of a plush bathrobe, wrapped around a story of love and betrayal among the rich, furtive and back-waxed.
The movie is astonishingly simple-minded, depicting characters who obediently perform their assigned roles as adulterers, cuckolds, etc.
This is what TV soaps would look like if they could be rated R ...One Life to Live with All My Lovers.
For a movie about an inter-family dalliance, it's far more pragmatic than you might expect, and far more humane.
A lean, sexy, scandalous tale involving a love triangle, betrayal and psychological revenge.
The overheated telenovela La Mujer de Mi Hermano bubbles with incest, adultery, religion and homosexuality.
Had the film's director and screenwriter fleshed out the climax of the movie, Hermano's inherent predilection for melodrama might have been more palatable.
La Mujer feels like a very attractively filmed, utterly banal TV melodrama.
A horrible script makes for a horrible movie. Even if the rest if it is done brilliantly.
This is a clumsy coming-out movie heavily swathed in a lethargic telenovela with much nicer furnishings.
Once upon a time, Americans snuck off to arthouses largely to sample the forbidden fruit of naked foreign boobs. Some things never change.
Impassioned acting by the leads oversells the tension a bit, and the story tires in attempting to top itself again and again.
To call it a soap is to denigrate the entire soap opera industry. ... It doesn't have one bit of genuine passion, energy or fire.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 83% 83% | Harry Potter and the H… |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 75% 75% | Julie & Julia |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 88% 88% | Inglourious Basterds |
| 78% 78% | The Hangover |
| 49% 49% | Taking Woodstock |
| 26% 26% | The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard |
| 47% 47% | The Girl From Monaco |
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