A desperately unhappy Karen leaves her married home and her successful but slimy husband and with her small savings rents a scruffy room in a slum-like house in Bogota. Penniless and friendless and unable to find any work she resorts to pilfering from food stores and begging in the streets. Patricia, one of the other tenants in the house, befriends her and suddenly life doesn’t seem quite so bad. The fact that Patricia’s own life is in a state of perpetual drama doesn’t seem to throw Karen off-balance as she takes her first steps towards finding out what she really wants out of her life as a liberated single woman.
And then things start to get better. The Bookstore she left her resume at some months ago phones and offers her a dream job, and at the same time she meets a gentle and understanding attractive man who is not only nice but falls in love with her. Trouble is that soon after he is offered a job in Argentina which he wants to accept and take Karen along too. Is this too soon to give up her fiercely fought new independence?
The film’s opening shots are of Karen sad, alone on the bus, crying and not knowing where she is going. The ‘journey’ we subsequently follow her on in this very gentle sensitive movie is shown from her perspective as she copes with all the obstacles in her path and moves forward with as much determination that she can muster.
The surprise to me was discovering this movie with its potent feminist theme was actually written and directed by a man! Hmmm. And usually the Latin-American movies that get released in the U.S. are highly dramatic pieces, and this one is far from it. A refreshing change, and one that wont have you crying on the bus home.
★★★★★★★
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