Real Women Have Curves (2002)

People are voting emotionally.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

In Real Women Have Curves, a young woman's college dreams are held at bay by her mother, who wants her to get a job, find a husband, and have babies.The young woman is the child of an immigrant, and while I always think of immigrants as wanting their children to lead better lives, Ana's mother Carmen seems to actively not want that. She constantly insults and belittles Ana and is a difficult character to emphasize with.This is not to say that Ana is perfect, displaying some youthful arrogance, but America Ferrera in her film debut displays all the charm that has made her a star.While the movie centers on the daughter-mother conflict, it's really about all sorts of things - body acceptance, the immigrant experience, youthful passions and insecurities. This is a small, slice-of-life movie with solid acting. I tend to like movies with more flash and higher drama, but this is very much the movie it sets out to be and works quite well.

The movie Real Women Have Curves starring America Ferrera is a moving and authentic look at the pressures pulling on Mexican immigrants as well as many overweight Americans. The movie shows us Ana Garcia's life during the summer after she graduates high school. Ana goes to work in her sister's dressmaking factory for the summer while she deals with applying to Columbia University, her overbearing mother and her new boyfriend. All these elements are boiled together in a broth of cultural and generational divide. Ana not only deals with a cultural gap wrenching her on both sides; one to her Mexican heritage, the other to fitting in to American ways of life but also with the generational gap common to all children and their parents. Ana's mother takes out the frustration of her older daughter's singleness on Ana and pressures her to lose weight so that she might better attract a husband. Yet Ana's life still transforms from one with little self esteem and self respect to one full of confidence and optimism for the future.As Ana's boyfriend boosts her confidence she simultaneously comes to realize how hard her family works, and how much they love her. Therefore the viewer is carried along with Ana as she overcomes her fears and successfully bridges the gap between her and her mother whilst also spanning the gap between Mexican culture and American Culture. Ana eventually overcomes her negative self image and recognizes herself as a beautiful person and realizes that every body is beautiful in and of itself. Ana's journey brings the viewer to confront their own stereotypes and misunderstandings about culture and weight. After watching this film the way we view people in America is proved to be misguided, everyone can learn from Ana's passage from self doubt to self respect.Along the way we meet many characters who impact Ana's life in one way or another, some positively, some negatively. Each character has a purpose and proves that the way we view and treat others makes a difference whether we realize it or not. Real Women Have Curves is a very good movie for making us challenge what the media will have us believe, for giving us some food for thought and making us laugh a little on our way.This is an excellent movie that I would recommend for all teenagers and adults regardless of background or beliefs because it gives the viewer access to a perspective other than their own.

Real Women Have Curves is a very enjoyable film, and also a very real film. It deals with very real issues concerning women and especially young women. The main character is of the Hispanic persuasion and though she is a very bright girl and could possibly get into a good collage she runs the risk of being swallowed up in the death trap job of making dresses that cost them 18 dollars to make but get sold in department stores for 800 dollars. Her mother keeps telling her she's overweight overlooking the fact that she is heavier than her daughter. This film is very much set in the real world, and the problems facing the characters are problems we all face at one time or another like "can I pay the rent on time?" or "will this person like me for who I am instead of what I look like?" Within the context of the film the answers to those questions are yes, and yes which may be one of the reasons this film is so enjoyable. America Ferrera's performance is reminiscent of the kind of girl you would see at your local high school, and the message of this movie is one that more people should take to heart. Be who you are, not who others want you to be, follow your dreams, and the like. I was surprised with how frankly this film deals with teenage sexuality, and how it challenges the concept of what beauty is in modern culture makes it a very progressive film indeed.

This is a good story. The close-knit Latino family is opened to our eyes so that we are like a peeping mousie in their household. Ana (America Ferrera) is so wise and wonderful at 18, in her perception of love and young men, well, this is a revelation to those who were brought up clinging and helpless-seeming. Ana has a few insecurities about weight, no doubt inculcated with a trip hammer by her relentless mother, superbly played by Lupe Ontiveros, whom many will recall as the eagle-eyed mother-in-law of Gabrielle on "Desperate Housewives," but Ana knows that she is so much more than poundage. She knows her worth. Ana is not a perfect teen. She "shows herself," as they used to call pouting and glum expressions on the young!, and quite often is resentful and disapproving (sometimes rightly) of her elders and their errors, which she can see but they cannot. But her heart is in the right place. The men in this movie (particularly Jorge Cervera, Jr. as Ana's father and Felipe de Alba as the grandfather) are kind and understanding, never contentious testosterone-bearers. These men seem to submit to the women characters while still retaining their machismo. They have a chivalry and sensitivity about them, but they are not weepy or weak. Ana's boyfriend (Brian Sites) is a real love! He is never licentious or libidinous (in an offensive way). Their first-ever sexual encounter is good-humored, trusting, planned carefully by Ana who bravely purchases the condoms, and, when it's over, she has this valiant capability of detaching from romantic mush and unrealistic expectations, facing the young man's departure for college as a signal that time and events will inevitably separate them and she does not require him to make sappy pledges of fidelity or eternal love. Ana was magnificent. She did tell him he'd probably end up with a skinny girl, but maybe she was just being statistically accurate and not self-condemning. I liked this girl and rooted for her to claim that scholarship and get that education, knowing that she would then be able better to help her struggling family, including her exemplary older sister, touchingly and winningly portrayed by Ingrid Oliu. I never had the least fear that going away to Columbia University on scholarship would sever Ana's ties to her loving family or to the problematic mother, whose own life experiences made her the way she was, the way many mothers are when their daughters are about to make novel choices that will take them beyond where their mothers got to go. Love is very much warp and woof for this family. The character I liked less, because of her evident avarice and heartlessness, was the dress company rep, whose bottom line was her only line. Teenagers would be wise to see this one, especially girls. They might be inspired to like their appearances more because of Ana's fearless mien! You don't have to be size 2! And girls might try to find a boyfriend like Ana's Jimmy. What a sweet duo they were. Would that all young people, bent on losing their virginities, did it in such gentle, safe, and trusted circumstances as these two youngsters did it. This movie is a nice slice of life. Very well done. (I hate those dress companies that sell for $600 and give those sweating seamstresses $18/dress! What piggish tyrants exist in the business world! Down with unfair sweatshops and up with these good people!)