Cristina (Denise Fraga) is a unemployed thirty-four years old single woman, living in São Paulo with her widow mother. She is full of debts, owing money to the bank and to the usurer at 40% per month. As her last chance to raise money, she decides to go to the marriage agency of Chico (Marco Ricca), trying to get a wealthy husband. Chico is a broken man of thirty and something years with a son and divorced from Bia (Julia Lemmertz), and he owes money to a friend of him. Chico needs urgently to organize a marriage to quit his debts. When the shy Paulo (Fábio Assunção) comes to his agency, he approaches Cristina and Paulo, and they decide to get married. In the end, Chico falls in love with Cristina. This movie is not bad, but I did not like the end of the story. Paulo is a good man, and when he is left alone in the altar of the church, I did not find the situation funny or romantic. Further, many issues are raised without any conclusion, like the debts of Cristina. The romantic situation superseded all the economical problems, and the story should at least show a clue in this regard. Denise Fraga is probably the best Brazilian comedian in Brazil, at least for me. She is an excellent actress, as well as the rest of the cast, composed by great Brazilian actors and actresses. The original declaration of love of Chico recalled me the scenes of kisses censored by the local priest in the wonderful `Nuovo Cinema Paradiso'. `Cristina Quer Casar' is a bittersweet movie, which expresses the economical situation of a great part of the Brazilian middle class, without employment and owing money, having a great cast and which deserved some improvement in the screenplay to become an excellent movie. Anyway, it is a good entertainment, another good example of the magnificent Brazilian cinema, one of the best in the world. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): `Cristina Quer Casar' (`Cristina Wants to Get Married')
