Love for Rent

I really wanted to like this movie, really I did. It was showcased at a Latin film festival. I heard nothing but wonderful things about Angie Cepeda who plays the lead actress. In the movie premiere, Angie was seated behind me and the director was seated next to me. I had high hopes for this romantic comedy and then something happened!...they rolled the film.

This was one disappointing film. The plot was unbelievable. All of her possessions are stolen while she is sleeping. I don't know about you but even if I were a heavy sleeper, I'm going to hear noises from a robber stealing of all my worldly possessions right in front of my nose.

I will say that Angie Cepeda does have a great deal of potential. It is not her fault that the script stinks. I mean it really stinks. The jokes are so amateurish. Specifically, the jokes are forced and sometimes the script leans to vulgarity just for shock value. Angie is surrounded by characters with no depth. Some of them are just plain obnoxious. You wonder why a girl of Angie's class would even be associated with these morons. That's the point. In real life, Angie probably doesn't hang out with these kinds of characters.

There is a scene in the movie where a big group of people are having dinner. This has to be the worst scene in the movie. Kind of like scratching your nails on a chalkboard. They burst out singing the song "Don't You Want Me Baby" by Human League. Oh my, oh my, it is bad with a capital "B." Congratulations on messing with a classic 80s hit.

Angie's love interest is supposed to be a doctor. Where did they find this guy from Chippendales? He acts like a little school boy when he first meets Angie. He then has the nerve to call her on his cell phone the very same day and ask her if she has a crush on him. Again, we are reminded of the bad script.

I will say in defense of the movie that there were people in the audience who were laughing at these obnoxious jokes. If you like some of the situation comedy junk on television, you might find some of this film amusing. If you have good taste in movies, you probably won't find it charming.

The problem with a bad script is that after a while you don't care about the characters because they never have anything intelligent to say. That is the whole point of a romantic comedy - intelligent banter. I can only recommend this movie to my enemies.

Its strange because much about this movie is kind of cliché and at times it had a strange awkwardness or amateurish feeling.

And yet, Angie Cepada is so strikingly beautiful, and at the same time so natural in her acting, that the film is a continual pleasure to watch. When she smiles it has all the warmth of someone you know. you just can't help falling in love with her.

Also, the film is interspersed with scenes that are very well done and outside the usual genre of romantic comedy, incorporating an off-beat humor that is at once silly and quite smart, because it captures the awkwardness of social interaction so well.

Even though at times it has an intelligent indie quality to it, it is still ultimately a predictable sappy romantic comedy about motherhood and family. If you expect nothing more it may surprise you though...I couldn't tear myself away.

Surprisingly, this is a *very* well written script from a well-thought idea for a story as well. The result is one of those "feel good" movies. There certainly are some stereotypes related to this type of romantic comedy, but, with non-stereotyped ending for each case. The difference here, however, is the "salsa" thrown in the pot, stemming from great Colombian actress Angie Cepeda (lovely, very natural and fine actress)and certainly helped out by a fine casting as well. The Latin flavor (and feelings, and life style) is present throughout the film in the two South-American girls from "...down there someplace...", as stated by Nora Dunn's character at some point. Here at IMDb below this reviewing window I got five "recommendations", all American, all very poor and certainly quite below this film's level. It also is a quite long film, which you don't notice because of the fine script and its great rendering by the actors.

After reading such a harsh review of Love For Rent in the Miami Herald, I just had to see what stirred up such emotion in their critic, especially since I read a terrific review in the LA Times.

Angie Cepeda, plays Sofia, a Colombian native struggling to keep alive her dream of becoming a lawyer in America (finally a Latina in a film not depicted as a cleaning lady). She is so driven in her goals that when she gets an A- minus in law class, she is disappointed. After getting robbed of everything and it looks as though there's no choice but to give up and go back to Columbia, she is offered money to carry a childless couple's baby. She becomes a surrogate mother. But this movie is about much more than that. It's about the powerful mother-child connection whether genetically bonded or not. This theme runs throughout the movie involving most of the characters and their own maternal connections.

The entire audience cheered at the end. Perhaps, they too, were curious at what brought so much fury to the Herald's critic.

I saw this movie as part of The Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. Although the movie had many technical issues (e.g., the boom is visible in about 30% of the film), I was so won over by the storyline and the characters that I forgot about them. The difficulty of making a good romantic comedy is that the format is standardized (guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy gets girl). Given that, it is probably a little harder to suspend disbelief for those that are not romantics themselves. I really enjoyed this movie and I recommend it for those that like their romantic comedies with a little bit of wit and intelligence.

Note: I hate to write reviews that boil down to, "People who like this sort of thing will like this.", but there it is.