Customer Reviews

Life According to Muriel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"La Vida Según Muriel [Life According to Muriel]" is a delightful story about women and children and the men who walk in and out of their lives. Muriel is the eight-year-old daughter of a troubled woman described by previous mates as crazy and combative. Her Mother wants to leave Buenos Aires and go back to the mountains but doesn't trust herself to make good decisions so she always lets Muriel determine what is best for them. As they near their destination, they stop at a mountain overlook, put a camera on the roof of their car for a time delay photo, and watch in horror as the car begins to roll forward and fall off the cliff into the sea with all their money and possessions. They beg a place to stay out of a woman in the burned out remains of a hotel, and eventually move in with her and her two kids. Both women miss the men in their lives but made compromises that did not work out and the story follows both their healing process and their developing strength in the face of tragedy and old and new lovers. The only possible drawback is that the subtitles are in white cartoon lettering on a full screen DVD presentation and are sometimes lost in the background colors, but the dialogue is easy to follow if you have any Spanish at all.

First of all, I'd like to say that I don't like spanish-spoken movies. But this is something out-of-this-world. From the director to the main characters, the crew, the production team, and everybody that is shown in the credits have made a terrific work, and I sinceresly encourage everybody to buy and watch this film. It's one of the best I've ever seen.

Seldom have I watched foreign films and not enjoyed them. But this one was very slow paced with bad editing (IMHO). I couldn't find myself to care for the main adult character, Laura. I thought she was selfish, self-centered and ill-tempered. Her daughter Muriel was insipid but I blame that partly on the script. They didn't develop her personality enough. I found Mirta, the hotel owner slightly more interesting. A friendship between Laura and Mirta develops after initial hostility, but you wonder why. Muriel's dad comes around and he's a good looking guy but not capture my attention either.

I wouldn't recommend this movie to watch. The only good thing I can say about it is that the scenery is beautiful at times and I wouldn't mind staying at the hotel there...providing the people in the movie wasn't around. There are better mother-daughter relationships and/or female friendship movies that are more engaging than this slow moving time waster.

Something silly did make me wonder. Laura smoked constantly. They were in the middle of nowhere. How did she manage to keep cigarettes around? She had to buy them buy the case!

Yep, I'll notice odd things sometimes.