AllMovie

Patricia Cardoso's debut feature, Real Women Have Curves, is a buoyant and beautifully executed coming-of-age tale. Its overwhelming cheeriness may strain credulity at times, yet all but the most cynical viewers will find themselves swept along by its humor and heart. The film's great strength is the perfectly pitched performance of newcomer America Ferrera as Ana, a smart teenager blossoming into self-confidence and maturity, despite the incessant criticism of her amusingly dyspeptic mother, Carmen (the wonderful Lupe Ontiveros of Chuck and Buck). Director Cardoso gets consistently strong performances from her cast, and keeps the tone sunny and warm throughout the film, despite the occasionally serious setbacks her characters face. Ana works in a sweatshop making expensive dresses for Bloomingdale's, and the fact that the sweatshop is owned by her enterprising older sister, Estella (Ingrid Oliu), and that Ana eventually brings out a certain esprit de corps among her co-workers doesn't quite gloss away that unpleasant truth. Similarly, when Ana goes to visit her father at work, she finds him at the huge estates where he does gardening work. Ana does go off on a couple of tirades about her working conditions, but Cardoso, working from a script by Josefina Lopez and George LaVoo, has chosen to deal with issues of economic disparity that underlie the story in a subtle, almost offhand way. Her focus is primarily on the clash of values and personalities between the mother and daughter. Cinematographer Jim Denault (Boys Don't Cry), whose talents have elevated so many low-budget films, also deserves mention for his fine work here. Real Women Have Curves won the Dramatic Audience Award and a special award for the performances of Ferrera and Ontiveros at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. The film was also shown as part of the New Directors/New Films Festival in New York.