My Brother's Wife (2006)

Best movie of this year hands down!

the audience applauded

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

I have watched so many nice movies from Argentina, Mexico and Peru that I could never expect a so terrible film like this, particularly as the plot could have been worked as an exciting production. With an absolutely ridiculous screenplay, full of awful dialogs, "La mujer de mi hermano" is a harsh failure, quite disappointing. Even though actors are not bad, their performance is not good enough to reverse the disaster caused by a bad story. As the film advances, one becomes more and more irritated by the so obvious events presented in a boring chain of clichés and unacceptably absurd situations. When the dramatic changes happen in the second third part of the movie, it is far from enough to make it a good film. Bárbara Mori is a beautiful actress; that does not make Zoe a good character.

This movie was made in Chili by a Pueruvian director & stars actors from Mexico.It is similar to many Hollywood romantic dramas of the past, BUT the story line is no longer the simplistic dramas of yesterday,.Here we have a beautiful woman, a handsome husband who does love his wife, but only wants sex on a Saturday. We do not find out why & what his problem is till toward the end of film. His brother is a hunky artist & Oh yes dear reader, he has an affair with his brothers wife.The sex scenes are good but not overly explicit,The acting by all concerned is very good & the settings are excellent,I will hazard a guess that members of the fair sex will enjoy this film even more than I. My ratings are based on mainly the excellent acting and fine production values, more than the plot & story.Ratings *** (out of 4) 87 points (out of 100) IMDb 8 (out of 10)

LA MUJER DE MI HERMANO is a bad movie that manages, through stylish visuals, neat transitions, lush electronica used as mood music, and a deliberate plot pacing, to look better than it is. Story-wise, it would have been better off set anywhere between the Fifties, because technically it's akin to the much better FAR FROM HEAVEN in melodrama, or even when this type of movies came into vogue during the period going from the late Seventies into the early Nineties. How and why it's situated in the present, and even more so, that its story got through the datedness that bogs it down is a mystery, but then again, Latin America is still in a mire of its own ultra-conservative values -- men are supposed to be macho; women who take charge of their own life are seen as little more than "zorras" in heat, and everything happens in a very hush-hush way. So for a Latin American public, the premise of LA MUJER DE MI HERMANO may work perfectly; on the other hand, it falls into an ugly "Splat!" of epic proportions on this side of the Rio Grande.Much of it has nothing to do with its denouement, which to a degree may even then be somewhat forgivable. Its failing, and Achilles heel, is based squarely in the trite language -- both on a visual and written level -- that tries to tell an intelligent story but has nothing to hold on to. For example, we're told that Ignacio and Zoe have been married for ten years, and that's okay. What is not, and where the story's implausibilities begin to show, is that in those ten years, they've fallen into a predictability where Ignacio can only have sex on Saturdays and prefers business traveling than being with Zoe. Ten years is a long, long time for Zoe not to notice the 500 pound elephant sitting placidly in her sleek, minimalistic and uber-contemporary living room. Maybe it's those twenty grapes she has a penchant for. Then again, Dorothy Parker wrote a story called "Too Bad", where a married couple of seven years suddenly separated. No one knew why, but once we went inside the marriage, we saw that these two had absolutely nothing in common, not even enough for small talk. We never find out their mechanics, but it's still a pretty funny story.This, however, is a story that takes itself seriously. Adding to the fact that Ignacio and Zoe have strange marital arrangements is the presence of Ignacio's studly brother Gonzalo. Gonzalo and Ignacio are estranged as presented in exclamation points early on at a family lunch. Zoe, do-gooder that she is, contacts Gonzalo and tries to make amends. He sells her a painting, and Ignacio hits the ceiling. Fifteen minutes are spent mulling and arguing over this painting as if it had some symbolic meaning. No sooner than this happens that Zoe is confiding deep secrets to Gonzalo as if she'd known him all her life, and a phone conversation implausibly makes its way to Ignacio's ears, but all he can do is throw the darned painting into the pool and seethe. More unremarkable events take place: Zoe also confides in who we're led to believe is her best friend, Boris, a stereotypical nellie. Conversations between Zoe and Boris are built to make us understand more will come out of their friendship, but that doesn't happen. The same can be said when Zoe makes Gonzalo prove to her he hasn't had sex with other women, or when in a repeat scene, she makes Ignacio promise her he hasn't had sex with men. It's all tease and fake promise.So with all this teasing going on, it's not a surprise as to why LA MUJER DE MI HERMANO looks good, but is quite bad. It begins with the misnomer of its title which would have Gonzalo the main narrator of the story, and ends by its sheer quaintness that never decides where it wants to take its characters and leaves them muddled in its telenovela roots. At least for a debut film from Ricardo de Montreuil, it's not a flat-out failure. It sells glossy images, attractive leads that would be at home in daytime soap, the presence of a veteran actress (Angelica Aragon), and that's all there is to it.

Erotically-charged pot boiler has exotic beauty Barbara Mori yearning for love and passion from her cold and seemingly unfeeling husband (Christian Meier). They both want children, but it seems that Meier is unable to impregnate his wife. The fact that Meier will literally only make love to his wife on Saturday nights and would rather pleasure himself adds to their marital tension. Soon Mori starts hanging out with Meier's younger artist brother (Manolo Cardona). It appears immediately that their relationship is going beyond what it should. The womanizing Cardona (who makes it clear to girlfriend Gaby Espino that he is not interested in anything having to do with marriage or children) quickly starts his routine with Mori and she begins to fall for him as friction grows by leaps and bounds between the two brothers. Mori finds solace with gay friend Bruno Bichir who seems to be the most reliable male influence in her chaotic life. Soon everything becomes heated and complicated with Mori in the middle of an emotional firestorm that is about to consume all the players found within. Present fireworks are also met with past family secrets that come to the forefront. "La Mujer De Mi Hermano" ("My Brother's Wife") is a highly interesting feature-length soap opera (which actually makes sense considering Mori and Meier's professional backgrounds) that works due to Jaime Bayly's dominant script concerning failed Catholicism (priest Beto Cuevas being a major role player here) and forced family obligations in the Hispanic world (from Angelica Aragon who yearns for grandchildren from her two sons). First-time feature director Ricardo de Montreuil has a firm grasp on his story and he is not afraid to let Mori (who is breathtakingly gorgeous) dominate the action and be the central focus. An international flair all the way as the United States, Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia all had a hand in the final product. While flawed, it still produces sparks and definitely an extreme heat. 4 stars out of 5.