Co-directors/writers Daniela Fejerman, Inès París have come up with an amusing trifle that explores the relationships between three sisters and their mother following her opening
birthday scene double-whammy of coming out and introducing her much junior
partner. My Mother Likes Women (Spanish with English subtitles)
is a film that resonates in any language.
The daughters go into various levels of shock at this
unexpected announcement (Dad has been happily divorced long before the
revelation) but it’s really middle-sibling Elvira’s (Leonor Watling) story as
she runs the gamut of denial, “maybe I am too,” and anger (“If I can get into
Eliska’s panties—played with quiet dignity by Eliska Sirová—then Mom will
come to her senses and dump her”).
In fact, Elvira spends more time horizontal than vertical
as she comes to terms with her own insecurities. Concerned that she too may be
a dyke-in-waiting she tells all to her psychologist, Ernesto. He responds in
the “classic manner” by fondling Elvira and (“because I know more about you than
anyone”) generously offering to probe her sexuality with his own attentive rod. She decides to seek help from another source.
But before you can say identity crisis, Elvira takes
matters into her own hands and attempts a stand-up rape of Miguel, her publisher
boss’ newly-signed author. The doomed coupling is peppered with several
in-your-pants lines from the determined daughter: “I fancy a good screw … Don’t
kiss me so much … Call me a whore!”
Failing twice at her own self-discovery, and learning from
Sol (Silvia Abascal who also serves up a telling punk rock outing number that
takes youthful rebellion to a new level of cruelty; the school-yard whining
refrain is entirely appropriate) and Jimena (María Puljate) that their mother’s
lover has also drained her savings to support her protégé’s music studies (both
women are accomplished pianists), it falls to Elvira to seduce their same-aged
“step-mother” as the means of having her banished.
The “would you like to see my tattoo” at the picnic line
fails miserably, but, undaunted, Elvira asks Eliska to go clubbing where she
hilariously reveals her ability to gauge men (“they’re just cocks lying in
wait”). Many drinks later, their harmless kiss in Elvira’s room almost turns
into something more. Eliska, promising secrecy about the entire night and
coming home at the breakfast hour, gets the boot from her petulant partner
Sofia, (Rosa María Sardá, who plays the character as blandly as it was
written). She delivers judgment by cliché, “Do you know what time it is?” Little wonder that Beethoven’s “Tempest” piano sonata was in Sofia’s concert
repertoire.
Cut to beautiful Prague where Eliska plays on exactly the
same piano that was used in the Madrid sequences (ain’t movie magic grand?) and
stoically endures the efforts of the now repentant three sisters (Mom collapsed
in sadness at her concert following her honest lover’s exile) as they try to
bring her back.
Then the syrup really starts to flow. Everybody makes up,
makes out or marries for immigration law convenience. It’s a film that has more
fun than flair and whose material never scratches anything except the surface, but
it’s nice to know that Hollywood endings aren’t entirely in the straight domain. JWR