Woman on Top (2000)
Average Rating: 4.7/10
Reviews Counted: 97
Fresh: 33 | Rotten: 64
Despite Penelope Cruz's beauty and charm, the movie is too tepid to be a romance and too silly to be believable. And the movie is too eager to please with an ending that seems more like a cop out.
Average Rating: 4.6/10
Critic Reviews: 31
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 21
Despite Penelope Cruz's beauty and charm, the movie is too tepid to be a romance and too silly to be believable. And the movie is too eager to please with an ending that seems more like a cop out.
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Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 7,905
Movie Info
Love, sex, and food combine in this sensuous romantic comedy. Isabella (Penelope Cruz) is a master chef who suffers from severe motion sickness, requiring her to be in control of her movements at all times. This need extends to the bedroom, but her husband Tonino (Murilo Benicio), who owns the restaurant where she works, doesn't like to make love in the fashion suggested by the title. This is hardly the only thing about their relationship that she finds stifling, and when Isabella discovers
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Cast
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Penelope Cruz
Isabella Oliveira -
Murilo Benício
Toninho Oliveira -
Harold Perrineau Jr.
Monica Jones -
Mark Feuerstein
Cliff Lloyd -
John DeLancie
Alex Reeves -
Wagner Moura
Rafi
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Woman on Top Trailer & Photos
All Critics (114) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (33) | Rotten (64) | DVD (11)
The film is something of a subtle accomplishment -- a commingling of froth, sensuality and moral awareness that somehow works.
Top CriticShort and sweet, it's suitable for a date night that includes both a movie and dinner.
A romantic fairy tale that's light and in several ways seductive, if not exactly filling. Still, there's always something enticing for the eye.
Penelope Cruz and little else in this so-so comedy
"Woman On Top" is a chick flick with so much colorfully spicy Brazilian food being passed around as a shared aphrodisiac, that audience couples will be running out the cinema for food and bed.
Cruz smolders with sexuality.
Wildly mediocre.
May remind you of Like Water For Chocolate without the tragedy and subtitles.
How is it possible for a movie about two hot Latin lovers and spicy South American food, to be so bland?
For a film whose title implies female empowerment, Woman On Top is really about motion sickness.
Magical realism spins out of control in 'Woman on Top.'
Woman on Top es una divertida fábula acerca del poder del Amor. Simplona...pero romántica.
Does nothing for gender or culture politics, but it's peppy and colorful, so you might enjoy parts even if you really shouldn't.
Everything might come together, too, were it not for terrible writing, marginal acting, some bewildering lapses of logic, and a fatal smugness.
Deeply bogus stuff, from a filmmaker who knows better (Celestial Mechanics), and an actress who is too talented to let herself be exploited like this.
Vera Blasi's thin script comes across as more silly than magical.
A more mature screenplay that delved into relationships, magical or not, would have helped.
A Like Water for Chocolate wannabe that isn't.
Woman on Top is a film that quite literally cooks -- but only when Penélope Cruz is in the kitchen.
Its whimsicality is forced, its attempts at cross-cultural humor are tired, and some of the acting is flat-out terrible.
This picture has no spirit, no soul and no magic.
This has nothing but the lamest romantic notions of kitchen sex.
Audience Reviews for Woman on Top
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- Toninho Oliveira: I love you.
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Movie: ID: 16908 Title: Woman on Top Release Date: 2000-09-22 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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Foreign Titles
- Las mujeres arriba (ES)
Motifs of sex, food, and voodoo comprise the plots of this light-hearted fairy tale. Penelope Cruz plays a woman who is so prone to motion sickness that she can only enjoy sex if she is on top, which drives her husband into the arms of another woman. The only way such a plot is remotely believable is if one suspends all disbelief. My brain is capable of such deceptive gymnastics. Instead, I found the film's light-hearted whimsy annoying and worthy of more than one eyeroll.
Cruz is sexy and fun, but into the second act, I felt that she had ceased to care as much as I.
Overall, unless foolish farce is your thing, stay the hell away from this film.