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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful insights overcome occasionally tedious pacing, August 18, 2010
***1/2
The Garcia girls consist of women from three successive generations: Dona Genoveva (Lucy Gallardo), the septuagenarian matriarch of the clan; Lolita (Elizabeth Pena), her stressed-out single-mother daughter; and Blanca (America Ferrera), her just-beginning-to-learn-about-life teenaged granddaughter. As the middle person in the hierarchy, Lolita has her hands full dealing with not only her own issues of a middle-aged divorcee struggling to make something of her own life, but those of an aging mother who's suddenly decided she wants to learn how to drive and to become romantically involved with the family gardener, and of a daughter who`s just beginning to learn about boys and the strange impulses and yearnings that are suddenly pouring forth from her rapidly changing body.
At its core, "How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer" shows how the problems of sex, love and relationships cut across all generational lines. Genoveva, for instance, is every bit as interested in achieving physical intimacy with a man as is her virginal teenaged granddaughter. In fact, this is one of the rare films that even acknowledges, let alone dramatizes, the fact that older people can be every bit as sexually preoccupied and sexually active as their much younger counterparts. And the movie also notes that the social and religious taboos placed on senior citizens having sex are every bit as intense as those placed on youngsters for the same thing. And caught in the middle of all this is Lolita, who often doesn't know quite what to make of either her mother or her daughter - or how to find the right balance between her own desires and needs and the responsibilities of being a breadwinner, a supportive daughter and a guiding force in her child's life.
As written and directed by Georgina Riedel, "How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer," which is set in a small dusty town in the Desert Southwest, focuses so intensely on the minutiae of the everyday lives of these women that it's bound to leave some in the audience feeling restive and impatient throughout large stretches of the film. The movie is filled with languid scenes where not a whole lot seems to be happening, and the pacing is often more desultory than it needs to be, which doesn't make the time go any faster. Yet, in a way, the style effectively picks up the rhythm of life in a sleepy town, where the wealth of experience seems frustratingly curtailed and the future itself sadly limited. In fact, Riedel periodically cuts away from the "action" to focus on a group of elderly gentlemen who sit around all day discussing what they've learned over the years about cars and girls, in roughly similar terms - which explains a great deal about just what these women have to deal with on a daily basis just trying to come to terms with their own roles in a largely male-dominated world. And beyond the uncompromisingly truthful and understated performances by the three leading ladies, the director demonstrates a keen eye for composition that makes the film at least visually interesting even when the drama itself isn't always engaging us completely.
Thus, for all its flaws, "How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer" provides many compelling insights into what it means to be a woman - in particular an Hispanic woman - in the modern world.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"Try a Little Tenderness", August 19, 2008
Much like ' Quinceanera' before it, `How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer' is a deliberate movie with a gentle heart. The movie zeroes in on three generations of Hispanic women in the titled family whose ambivalence about men finds them grappling for much needed tenderness in their lives.
Lolita Garcia (Elizabeth Pena) faces her fortieth birthday. She works at a neighborhood delicatessen where fellow worker, Jose Luis's (Rick Majera) lecherous interest has her as jaundiced about men as her ex-husband. Hitting on her from the other side of the counter is Victor (Steven Bauer), a macho man who's marriage vows go the wayside with every possible conquest.
Lolita is the central figure at home, which is really owned by her mother, Dona (America Ferrera) who wants to learn late in life how to drive a car. Don Pedro (Jorge Cervera) an older gentleman volunteers to teach her and opens up to her a world of opportunities, not just to travel independently, but to rediscover herself. Blanca Garcia (America Ferrera) is her coming-of-age daughter who mingles on the streets with her friends, as they watch the boys (Leo Minaya and Victor Wolf) try to pick them as they pass by in their truck.
Intermittently, a group of elderly men sitting on a street corner make reflections in Spanish of past glory days with girls and cars. A Greek chorus of sorts, the men speak on behalf of the wolve-like ways of men.
The movie draws from ' Volver' in tone and themes as it delivers a "can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em" attitude from the women. The acting is as believable as life itself. While some of the jokes have a thoughtful excellence, the film moves like an overly slow sled. Tenderness surely isn't achieved by any deadline, and it's refreshing that they don't take their affairs lightly, but the film's editing could have tightened up their story.
A J.P.'s Pick 3*'s-Good
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Time and Love, August 27, 2010
How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer (2005) Elizabeth Peña, America Ferrera
Rated R.
Another basically unknown movie.
This Indy film by a new woman director, is a slice of life taking place in a parched and dust bound piss-ant of a border town in Arizona.
This town can be best described as a derelict vehicle set on blocks in the desert and waiting to rust away as the years roll on by, without anyone ever noticing.
No where to go.
Nothin' to do.
A dirt road to nowhere in particular so why is there even a road?
Towns like this offer a corner video store as it's only breath of life to all its residents. That and the local laundromat hangout.
Three generations of Hispanic women: mom, daughter and grandma, begin to collide when old and new cultures cross swords as they all decide to break out of their monotony.
Their trials lead them to many experiences and revelations.
The characters and their lives are oddly affecting.
They're all looking for something. Is it love? Is it freedom from loneliness? And just how do you get there? And what is the price to pay?
Where can true tenderness be found? And is there such a thing?
This is a slow and meaningful character study. A film with a gentle heart. Some may find it boring but towns and lives like this are boring, Yet there is nothing boring about the choices people make in their lives when those choices lead them to a place they had not intended to go.
A movie for a quiet evening.
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