AllMovie

Turf wars between Uruguayan hookers and Brazilian drag queens are just one of the highlights of Tricky Life, a serious but humorous look at women, poverty, and white slavery. When Elisa (Mariana Santángelo), a single mother of two, is kicked out of her mother's house in the middle of a rainstorm, she goes to her current lover, a married, middle-aged store keeper, for help. He finds her an apartment in Montevideo, where Elisa lives with her best friend Lulu. The two women want nothing more than to open their own hair salon, but can't find the necessary money to do so. Deciding prostitution is the easiest way to go for financing, they find a respectable brothel to call their workplace. Things go fairly smoothly until Elisa falls for Placido, an older, smooth-talking Spaniard who seduces her with his smooth manner and talk of riches to be had in Barcelona. Abandoning both her children and a good portion of her common sense, Elisa, with Lulu in tow, follows Placido to Barcelona, where she soon discovers that Placido is better at making promises than actually keeping them. Tricky Life was screened at the 2002 Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema.