These Are Real Women

I generally don’t enjoy films that are merely snapshots of people’s lives. Too often, these movies have no controlling plot, at least not one that is woven throughout. Real Women Have Curves is a snapshot of one girl whose plot traverses just a few weeks but encompasses the girl’s entire life. And that, I can appreciate.

The main character, a young girl from a rather poor immigrant family, graduates from Beverly Hills High School and must deal with her conflicting pressures to go to college, to work at her sister’s factory, and to get married. Her life is foreign to me, for I’m more like her boyfriend, from a standard middle-class family whose parents share his same views on life. The main girl's family, however, just doesn't understand her. The girl's mother turns out to be the villain, but it’s not because she’s actually villainous; it’s just because she tries to hold onto a lifestyle that is difficult to maintain in the United States.

The part that I really can’t understand is that the mother doesn’t seem to wish that her daughter will have a better life than she had. She has this idea that her life was difficult and she managed to plow through it, so now it’s her daughter’s turn to follow in her footsteps, to get married and take care of her children. There’s something to that, I guess, but I just can’t understand it.

Not with my daughter, I kept thinking. Sure, she’s only one year old, but I want her to have much MORE than I had. She should have someone there to tell her that graduate school in English is NOT the way to go…Alright, so I’m projecting, and I’m basically doing what the mother in this film does, I know. Even though I pretend to want my kids to be independent, some element of me wants to control them just like every parent. The difference, I guess, is rather minor, but it means that I don’t want my kids to be just like me. I know my life isn’t perfect, and I understand where I screwed it up, and I don’t want the same thing to happen to my kids.

If a movie can inspire this kind of dialogue within me, then that’s gotta be a decent movie, or at least provocative. And Real Women Have Curves is definitely a decent movie.

I have one complaint, though, which is also a kind of praise. The title is heavy-handed enough, but most of the movie doesn’t hit you over the head with the idea that real women with curves are beautiful, too. One scene, however, is way too much, as it tries to hammer it home that these are real women, and they don’t have to look like models; they’re beautiful just the way they are. It’s funny, but it also made me wish that they would stop. Not because I don’t believe it, but because I’m a chauvinist pig, I mean because I can’t stand it when a movie simply preaches. Overall, this film is pretty subtle, but this part was just way too preachy. If it’s Michael Moore, I expect it. When it’s a narrative, I don’t want it.

That same scene, and the rest of the movie, however, did make me appreciate the way people are, including myself. It's cheesy, I know, but there's something really pleasing about this movie. It's provocative, yes, but it's also rather nice. I won't say "feel good," becuase then I won't like it, but there's something about this film that makes me appreciate who I am and what I have. And it's still a good movie.

Grade for Real Women Have Curves: 8