Passionada

"Passionada" is all about Milos as a beautiful Portuguese widow and cabaret singer who mourns the loss of her fisherman husband while her daughter and gambling prodigy Rossum consorts with professional card player Issacs to get good old mom out of her funk. The result is a beautifully shot film with marginally interesting characters and an uneventful story which spends most of its time with Issacs courting a reluctant Milos with his English accent and glib patter. The film wanders somewhere between romantic drama and romantic comedy not taking a firm position thereby diluting its ability to be engaging in either genre. Nonetheless, romantics and sentimentalists will appreciate this languorous but pretty film with a cosmopolitan flavor. (B-)

Independent film making is to be commended because it brings a different view about things that are so over blown by mainstream Hollywood fare. That said, it's completely incomprehensible the negative comments generated by "Passionada". This film, directed with style by Dan Ireland, deserves better than what has been written in IMDb.

Most of the venom directed to "Passionada" seems to be about its authenticity and the ethnicity of the characters being misrepresented by the cast assembled. Those complaints are baseless. Do the same people that put it down have anything to say when they watch other mainstream films that have no logic at all? I don't think so. Lighten up, people it's only a film that aims at entertaining its viewers.

"Passionada" is a small film about loss and redemption told in cinematic terms by a cast that plays well together. Jason Isaacs, the card sharpie Charles Beck, finds love with the dark and sultry Celia Amonte, played by Sofia Milos. Their love grows in spite of all what Charles hides from his past.

Lupe Ontiveros, an excellent actress, doesn't have much to do in the film, but then it's not her story we are watching. Emmy Rossum is the rebel daughter. Seymour Cassel and Theresa Russell are fine in their small roles.

The town of New Bedford, Massachussets, serves as the perfect background for this romantic comedy.

The cinematography is fantastic. I even shed some tears as did my friend.

However, my brother and I, both born in Portugal, were disappointed with the pronunciation of the Portuguese, more Brazilian Portuguese than Portuguese from Portugal. Although the Fado lip sung by the main character was moving it was obvious that the actress was lip singing. Sofia Milos did a fine job as Celia Amonte, but aren't there any Portuguese-American aspiring actresses in Hollywood? The reason my Big Fat Greek Wedding was such a sleeper success is that most of the cast playing Greeks were Greek-American. It is obvious that the research of the Portuguese culture, language and cuisine was minimal. I'm amazed that this movie was filmed on location in New Bedford, MA, yet there were so many ethnic faux-pas. Were any authentic Portuguese-Americans advisors on this movie? Why is it that other American ethnic groups can have movies made of them with correct speech, etc. and that the Portuguese can not? Example: Mystic Pizza. At least Mystic Pizza only played Portuguese folkloric music not Brazilian Samba music. If Hollywood is to make a movie about the Portuguese in America they should keep it Portuguese.

Dear IMDb,

The lead review you have on the site -- Straight To TV Land -- is

outdated and misleading; the film has an entirely new ending that is not

relevant to these comments. The film was also significantly re-edited

since the test screening that this review relates to. Just read the

other comments on the site and you will see. Please, let this review sit

at the end where it belongs as it is about a movie that is no longer the

movie this gentleman is writing about.

Dan Ireland, Director, Passionada .......

When I saw PASSIONADA the first time (it have been recommended by someone I truly admire) I was very put off. I didn't like it, I thought it was, well, nothing. The person who had recommended it in the first place, urged me, to see two other Dan Ireland movies. The Whole Wide World, which I loved and "The Velocity Of Gary" which I thought it was hard to sit through, the first time, but, I must say, I felt compelled to see it a second time and by my third viewing I was in love with the movie. Then I went back to Passionada. What a different movie it was, within the context of Ireland's other work. It is the perfect piece of the puzzle that unveils the total work of an artist's life work. Ireland's theme is LOVE, AS AN IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT. In the Whole Wide World, is intellectual and tragic in Velocity of Gary, is sexual and pathetic in Passionada, he allows the characters to have a future. It is, after all, Ireland's romantic comedy. But even then, we don't really know, if we listen carefully to a throw away line by Theresa Russell "Once a liar, always a liar" (Or words worth that effect) To all film fans, I suggest to see the films in order, one after the other and you'll discover something to look forward to.