Review: 'Casi Divas' is a Winner

One of the top five money makers in Mexico last year, Casi Divas tries really hard to charm you, and it mostly succeeds, unless you happen to be made of cold, hard ice.

The comedy is also bastante predictable, with a set-up that just begs—and gets—a tidy tying up of loose ends: Four very different girls from four very different corners of Mexico participate in a competition to star in the movie version of a telenovela called Maria Enamorada. The plot also involves the movie’s producer (Julio Bracho) and his estranged partner, the telenovela’s original protagonist (a very funny Patricia Llaca, playing the fierce diva to the hilt), who refuses to be sidelined and tries to sabotage the production. At the end, they all learn some very important life lessons.

The girls—and the movie’s setting in a reality TV world that offers fame as the great social equalizer—offer a good opportunity for writer/director Issa Lopez to explore the giant inequalities in the country, with a feminist edge. There’s Francisca, the Zapotec india from the seemingly forgotten state of Oaxaca (played by Maya Zapata), who is discriminated against for her skin color and ethnicity almost immediately; there’s Ximena (Ana Layevska), the blond rich chilanga whose ruthlessness and sense of entitlement grate on Catalina (Diana Garcia), whose beauty can’t hide a hard edge chiseled by life in Juarez, a town where men chew up and spit out women—killing them and dumping their bodies. Then there’s the scrappy, slum-dwelling Yesi (the scene-stealing Daniela Schmidt), who longs to literally transcend onscreen (you’ll see what I mean). They meet, backbite, support each other, etc.,

The movie is acted well enough by all, but it’s the scenes of Yesi and her family, who bite, kick, curse at and punch each other with hilarious regularity, that will really make you laugh. The movie’s feminine empowerment message—that women need to know who they are and stand firm in that even in the face of tremendous societal pressure to look and act a certain way, and though the social message—that Mexico’s national pride hides a disturbing amount of prejudice that needs to be addressed, sometimes bubble up a little too literally, the movie is ultimately funny, sweet and inspiring. How could you not root for that? —Damarys Ocaña  SiTV grade: B