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Saturday, August 16, 2014

Gloria (2013)

Let's start off with the things that make this movie well worth watching.  Gloria a formerly wed, 50-ish office worker in Santiago who laughs easily, wails along to the sappy love songs on her car radio and craves new adventures whether bungee-jumping, smoking pot, or simpulsive getaways.
The trouble is, most people—including her adult son and daughter—are either too busy or don't bother to notice that there is a vibrant human being standing before them who aches for intimate contact and a chance to shower someone with affection.  Poor Gloria.

One night she is out dancing and Rodolfo, a middle aged recently divorced man, notices the bon vivant that lives inside of her, and he falls quickly in love with her--but he really loves her spirit and doesn't dig much deeper.  That is the down side of this movie, that as with all relationships that are based on initial attraction and good sex, that candle flickers after a while, and the relationship cannot be sustained on those things alone.

The upside is that middle aged sex, with all the flab and wrinkles, is depicted unsparingly (ok, that may be the bad news, depending on what you are going for in movies, but my point is that true to the Spanish film tradition, sex is gritty).  The downside is that while Rodolfo claims to have cast off the chains of his former life, he is ruled by his two adult daughters and by proxy, his ex-wife, and that is the very sad ending.

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