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A roguish, gambling, compulsive liar, falls for a mysterious widow, a singer in a Portuguese restaurant who lives with her daughter and mother-in-law. It takes a while to get to the courtship (there’s some pointless business dealt with the daughter — one truly terrible performance from Emmy Rossum — who wants to learn to count cards), before the widow can even begin to get the ice on her shoulder to melt away. However, once it does, one could care less since the schmuck protagonist obviously won’t be able to change his ways until the epiphany at the end, basing the dull and generic relationship on a stack of lies. It’s one of those banal formulas where you know she will end up acquiescing before the credits, that is, if you can take the mawkish syrup and embarrassingly amateurish construction of everything in sight. (One laugh is the size of the subtitles for certain Portuguese dialogues, as if that would deter such an off-putting concept for the large masses this will attract. Another laugh is Lupe Ontiveros’ venture to use an authentic accent.) A musical interlude or two (“Felicidad” was nice) can’t help to overlook the confluence of flaws and faults contained, crumpled up into a begging forgiveness voiced by Jason Isaacs since Ireland isn’t able to appear on-screen and ask for it himself.

[Not to be bothered with.]

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8077&reviewer=172
originally posted: 05/05/04 18:48:11
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