Customer Reviews

Passionada

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

(Note: this review is based on the theatrical release, not the DVD version) I am not generally a fan of romantic comedies; I drove 400 miles to New Bedford, MA, to watch this one purely to see Jason Isaacs, and I was not disappointed! The movie apparently went through a change of cast (Isaacs replaced another actor at the very last possible minute), it went through at least one change of ending, and I suspect the script was still being tinkered with the night before I saw it, all of which goes some way to explaining its somewhat uneven pacing and lurching storyline. The script was reportedly written on spec, at least in part to promote the town of New Bedford, last the location for a movie when Gregory Peck appeared in "Moby Dick", and the screenwriters have ladled on the atmosphere with a vengeance.
The basic storyline, as it finally comes down to us, has the *gorgeous* Sofia Milos, absolutely radiant here, playing Celia Amonte, the subdued widow of a drowned Portuguese fisherman, giving vent to her passion and grief at night singing 'fado' in undeserving clubs. There she is encountered by inexplicably British card-counting unsuccessful professional gambler (*phew*) Charlie Beck, the aforementioned Jason Isaacs. Charlie is immediately, understandably, smitten with Celia and sets about trying to weasel his way into her life.
Isaacs has a wonderful ability to imbue the most two-dimensional character with significant backstory, and his Charlie, recently released from a prison sentence served in part to protect wealthy pal Daniel Vargas (the always delightful Seymour Cassel) has drifted rootlessly, never accepting what he was dealt, always on the lookout for the scam. Clad in a lurid array of Hawaiian shirts, he is, in a sense, always on vacation from real life. After another series of unlikely coincidences he enlists the aid of Celia's teenage daughter (the winsome Emmy Rossum) to pull the wool over Celia's eyes with the help of some of Daniel's handy expensive props, and cons Celia into believing that not only is he a legitimate businessman, but his intentions also involve a boffo plan to reinvigorate New Bedford's ailing fishing industry (sadly unlikely, unless he can figure out a way to restore global fishery stock).
Anyway, the course of true love never does run straight, at least in Hollywood movies, and there are numerous twists and turns for Charlie and Celia to contend with. Many of these feel false and imposed, but Isaacs and Milos have incredible chemistry together, and despite yourself you find you really care about seeing these two together. Their delicate love scenes (the most memorable involves Celia producing what looks like a banquet for 30, rather than refreshment for an intimate tête-à-tête, including about $150 worth of seafood, gorgeously displayed in long lingering shots worthy of Gourmet magazine) positively smoulder, though they are devoid of any graphic content.
Director Dan Ireland worked hard at wresting a coherent story out of this, and too much of his labour shows on screen, but the movie itself is beautiful, a paean to the community of New Bedford and to its two stars, a refreshing change from the usual bland 20-somethings. I found it, despite its flaws, thoroughly enjoyable.

Yeah, yeah, it's a highly unlikely situation, and it's not believable in lots of parts. But still. Just get over it and sit back to enjoy this lovely and entertaining movie. Set in New Bedford, a Portuguese fishing town, it tells the story of a drop deal gorgeous widow (Sofia Milos) who spurns all potential suitors, is living adjacent (duplex) to her mother-in-law (the mama from Real Women Have Curves), and is raising her teenage daughter very strictly. The only place she releases the soul of her passion is in restaurants where she sings fado music, passionate Portuguese ballads of intense drama.
Of course the daughter is no dummy and finds ways to sneak off to casinos; for inexplicable reasons, she yearns to be a card shark. She finds a guy who just might be willing to teach her a thing or two. Happens the guy also has heard Mama singing her fado gig and has fallen ace over deuces for her.
Some great scenes, some great music, some poignant scenes, lots of touching humor. A satisfying way to spend an evening.

In the Portuguese community in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Celia Amonte (Sofia Milos) lost her fisherman husband to the sea. Seven years later, Celia works in a factory by day, sings passionate ballads by night, and still grieves for her husband. One evening, a professional gambler named Charlie Beck (Jason Isaacs) hears Celia sing and falls head over heels for her on the spot. But Celia is married to widowhood and distrustful of gamblers. Celia's brash teenaged daughter, Vicki (Emmy Rossum), proposes to help Charlie hide his lifestyle and woo her mother in exchange for lessons in card-counting.

"Passionada" was directed by Dan Ireland and written by Jim and Steve Jermanok. Setting this romance in Portuguese community of New Bedford gives the film a nice texture and sense of place. The cast is impressive. But somehow the story is just flat and not quite credible. Sofia Milos gives a charismatic and emotionally astute performance. She commands the audience's attention in every scene that she's in, and she is "Passionada"s greatest asset. The rest of the film's cast is convincing enough, but not able to overcome the story's clichés and general blandness. Lupe Ontiveros delivers another of many apt matriarch performances as Celia's mother-in-law. Emmy Rossum, whom you might recognize as "the daughter" in Clint Eastwood's melodramatic noir "Mystic River", plays another daughter of a different disposition here. Rossum is a real up-and-comer whose talent and screen presence shows through the weaker spots in this script. Theresa Russell gives a strong supporting performance as Lois, a friend of Charlie's, which made me wonder why I don't see more of her in movies these days. "Passionada" has some talent behind it, and Sofia Milos really impresses as Celia Amonte. But this film lacks spark in spite of its capable cast.

The DVD: Bonus features include a deleted scene, an alternate ending, and two audio commentaries. The alternate ending is from an earlier version of the film and played poorly with test audiences. It's mismatched and ill-conceived by the director's own admission, so it's not worth your time. The deleted scene and alternate ending are accompanied by optional commentary from director Dan Ireland, Jason Isaacs, and Sofia Milos. The first audio commentary by director Dan Ireland and cast members Jason Isaacs and Sofia Milos is pretty good. The second commentary is by the film's writers, brothers Jim and Steve Jermanok. This commentary is very low-key and discusses the writing process from the screenplay's conception to fine-tuning the script. It's slow, but if that's your area of interest, it will give you insight into how people go about writing a film.

Being a Jason Isaacs affectionado, I could not pass it up. I'm glad I didn't. It's a sweet little romance about a Portuages women who vows never to love again after loosing her husband at see. Then in comes Jason,aka Charlie Beck who is a gambler and falls in love with the lady after hearing her sing. I'm quite curtain this is Jason's first Romantic-Comedy leading role and he pulled it off without a hitch. The other actors were just as wonderful, which is important to make a movie memorable.

Charlie (Jason Isaac) is a card player of dubious luck, who lives in a cheap motel and is going nowhere until he meets and woos a conservative and beautiful Portugese seamstress/singer, Celia, played by the stunning Sofia Milos (CSI: Miami). Celia has a meddlesome teenage daughter, Vickie (Emmy Rossum) who wants to learn how to count cards by blackmailing Charlie into teaching her, but he is banned from all casinos. Vickie wants to hook her mother up with a new man but her computer dating schemes fail. In the meanwhile, Charlie's only friends, a wealthy couple, Lois (Theresa Russell) and Danny Vargas (Seymore Cassel), lend him their Jaguar XKE, sailboat, and home to impress the widow that he is a successful and wealthy entrepreneur. It sounds like a typical dating game setup except for the background settings of the Portugese fishing community, mouthwatering seafood cooking, and casino gaming that flesh out the story.

Through falling in love, fishing, and lying to make points with the mother, Charlie learns how to turn his life around the hard way through his deceptions which backfire, and Sofia tries to forget the husband whose death has left her prematurely widowed yet not completely dead from the neck down.

With the interferences of Vickie, significant amounts of fish as unlikely props, and an otherwise sappy storyline, this is an entertaining film which allows the wonderful character actor Jason Isaac (Peter Pan, The Patriot) to show another side to his already excellent acting chops. Emmy Rossum is adequately irritating in a pre-Phantom of the Opera role that suggests her growth from typical teenager to inge'nue-in-training. However, it is the vibrant and seductive Sofia Milos as Celia who gives a rounded performance from cloistered widow to sensuous nightclub chanteuse that surprises and delights.

This is a small story about love in all its forms and definitions. Thoroughly enjoyable and wonderful for a date nite or simply rainy day, Passionada entertains with its story of misdirected love and casino gambling gone right.

This movie is more the silly side of romantic, which is wonderful. Seeing Jason Issacs playng something other than a villan that seems to die all the time is great too! He does a good job with his character, but I wish they hadn't made hm wear a wig! The romance is cute,though at times a little childish. The music will have you dancing, or other times wistful. A truly beautiful movie.

Not only is the scenery and landscape footage in this little film absolutely gorgeous, you will find a smile on your face whether you think the plot sappy or not, for the golden tones Dan Ireland loves in this movie spill over into one's mood. This film was shot with absolutely no cinematic tricks or gimmickery, just the lush landscapes of a few quaint seaside communities, rich in culture and history, poor in economy, and it tells a simple little love story, of finding romance where one least expects, and when one is devoted to the memory of a deceased husband, and wedded to the cultural mourning of a lost love, such as Celia Amonte is (Sofia Milos). Celia labors as a seamstress in a garment factory by day, but sings sultry Fado at night in local clubs (Portuguese romance songs, always with a sadly passionate twist, of love lost, or never won, tearing at the heart with its moody melodies, and stirring guitar playing).

Enter Charlie Beck (Jason Isaacs), card-counting gambler restricted from casinos all over the world, vacationing with his "retired" and respectable pals Lois and Danny Vargas (Theresa Russell, Seymour Cassells), who happens to catch a performance of Celia's, and is moved enough to want to express his admiration for her performance and artistry, and also wants to ask her out. In essence, Charlie begins to live "fado", wanting what he cannot have. Celia only has room in her heart for her beloved Joseph, her late husband. As an aside, Isaacs was not the initial male lead, who walked off the film without much notice, and the director and producer offered the part to Jason Isaacs, who had to finish making "Black Hawk Down", then hop a plane to New Bedford, learn his lines, and swap a dark character for the against-type role of Charlie. I think he did a fine job, and is actually quite funny. He's supposed to be a good-natured bit of a cad with no sense of dress. He pulls it off perfectly, honing that scuzzy personality, loud, tasteless, silly, no class, so that Celia is initially both amused and repulsed by his manner.

But love finds a way, and it comes in the person of Celia's headstrong and pretty daughter Vicky (Emmy Rossum, an unknown at the time, later to be Sean Penn's daughter in Mystic River, as well as the female lead in Phantom of the Opera), who is as thoroughly modern as her mama is cultural and old-fashioned. Now, the two of them really do look like mother and daughter, so this works out well in the film. And they have a great charisma that gets the movie through its sometimes cliched and stilted dialogue. (And yes, Portuguese girls and women DO say "yeah, yeah, yeah", though more like "Yuh, yuh, yuh") Also, they would NEVER call their grandmother "Nana", a big boo-boo for the filmmakers, who otherwise really did a good job getting the cultural stuff down. "Vovo" is grandmother, pronounced "voh-VOH". Underage Vicky has a penchant for gambling, unbeknownst to her straight-laced mother, and inadvertantly meets Charlie at a casino.

She meets him again after he has met Celia, and then the fun begins, for he is giving Celia quite a line about who he is and what he is all about, and Vicky knows exactly what he is. They have to work together, compromise, so that she gets what she wants, and Charlie has a chance to get what he wants.

If the dialogue is a bit stilted, or cliched, well, the scenery and the food scenes will steal your heart, and make you want to plot the quickest route to New Bedford, where there are extraordinary dining experiences, to be sure. The phantom gourmet in Boston is forever finding one well-kept dining secret after another in the coastal towns of Greater New Bedford. The dishes Celia prepares in the movie are authentic Portuguese recipies, and the camera loves this food more than it ever loved Brad Pitt.

OK, so love stories are a dime a dozen, but this one has class, in that each character really fits the part. The music comes on like another member of the cast, and sets the mood so perfectly. The scenery and landscapes, the festival and the food, the sunsets and the sandy beaches, all add to the romanticism in a way so few films ever achieve. And it's all real.

The banter and back and forth dialogue of Charlie and Vicky, and again of Charlie and Celia, are very funny, and I would caution viewers right off the bat to make sure the subtitles are on, as much is missed in some of the breathy interchanges, as well as the quick quips exchanged.

I could not give the film 5 stars, however, because I thought Cassells and Russell are good actors, and deserved better dialogue than they got stuck with. Russell's sultry voice and manner, and the couple's antics help save their roles, and the movie, too, but Cassells lines, especially, were almost embarrasingly all cliched.

All in all, a good movie to perk up your spirits, to settle down with if you are not in an overly-cognitive state of mind, and to rejeuvenate your belief that true love does happen more than once, and this feel-good film will set you in the right mood.

I live near New Bedford, though I believe this made me more critical of the film, as I would know whether they got something "right" or not. I can assure you that culturally, women in Celia's position would behave in a similar manner. The director did a terrific job in getting much of the culture of the Portuguese community onto the film.

For several years of my life, I lived next door to the house where this movie was filmed. The characters in the movie actually used my old driveway as their own. Living in New Bedford a good part of my life, I found the opening scene of New Bedford Harbor breathtaking and it really touch my heart. The movie is very romantic. If you love romance movies or novels, I'm sure that you will not be disappointed. My favorite scene, next to the opening one of New Bedford Harbor, is when all the characters are at the Portuguese Feast. Having gone to the Portuguese Feast in New Bedford year after year, it was interesting to watch. This is a very different, refreshing, romantic movie that I really enjoyed.

I will admit that I bought this movie simply because Jason Isaacs is in it. That said, I enjoyed the movie. It's a light, pleasant little romance set in a gorgeous place. In fact, New Bedford is practically a separate charcter, and a lovely and appealing one, at that.

Although the themes in this movie aren't very complex, and the story isn't all that original, the characters are attractive and likable, and I have to give everyone involved snaps for the beautiful settings and especially for the wonderfully erotic scene in which Celia (Sofia Milos) feeds Charlie (Jason Isaacs) bits of food, and he sucks on her fingers. It's very sensual, without being explicit or tawdry, and it leads to some really fantastic kissing between Jason and Sofia.

The DVD commentary from Jason, Sofia, and the director Dan Ireland is just about the most entertaining commentary I've ever heard on a movie. In fact, the commentary is more entertaining than the movie, because Jason is so clever and funny, and Dan and Sofia are both so sincere in their fondness for the setting and the wonderful fado music. The sensual scene noted above is particularly fun listening on the commentary, with Jason talking about how difficult it is to both play and to watch himself play romantic scenes, Sofia talking about how she fell a little bit in love with Jason during that scene, and Dan alternately teasing them and lavishing praise on them for the passion in the scene. It's pretty obvious that the three of them like and respect each other and really enjoyed working together on this movie. It is also interesting to hear them talk about how disappointed and a little hurt they were that the the film didn't do better at the box office.

I gave this movie a 4, although a 3 1/2 might be more appropriate. It is beautifully shot, the performances are all very fine, the music is amazing, but the story is just a little too predictable.

I found "Passionada" to be utterly charming--a movie about second chances and taking a chance on love when it comes your way. The movie is very well cast and the cinematography is breath-taking. You can tell the director really fell for New Bedford and did his best to re-create the Portugese-American fishing community there. Jason Isaacs did a splendid job playing the vulnerable, low-roller con man Charlie Beck and Carla Milos (who is actually Greek/Italian) did a credible job as Sofia (a widow but "the most married woman you're likely to meet" as the bartender puts it. Emily Rossum, in a pre-Phantom role, shines as Sofia's daughter, the budding gambler. This is an old-fashioned romance movie where the emphasis is on the romance rather than the sex. The DVD offers the discarded original ending (too melodramatic) and commentary by the director and the cast.