Ferrera's Ana Pursues the American Dream in Real Women Have Curves

I first became aware of America Ferrera when I watched Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Her performance impressed me then, and once Ugly Betty hit the airwaves I became a huge fan, so I figured it was about time I saw her motion picture debut.

Real Women Have Curves is the story of Ana (Ferrera), a recent high school graduate whose dreams of college, nurtured by her supportive teacher, Mr. Guzman (George Lopez), seem distant when she is forced to work in her older sister Estela's (Ingrid Oliu) dress factory, which is essentially a sweatshop where they labor to make fashionable dresses for a meager eighteen dollars each. Ana is incensed that those dresses then go on to sell for hundreds of dollars in pricey shops, but her hard-headed mother Carmen (Lupe Ontiveros) warns her to keep her complaints to herself.

Not that Carmen is such a model of restraint. She constantly harps on her daughters for the way they have disappointed her and is especially hard on the revolutionary Ana, whose weight she criticizes constantly. Carmen's chief concerns are putting Ana to work and marrying her off, and she has no time for her daughter's scholarly ambitions. Her father (George Cervera Jr.) is more understanding of her dreams but doesn't find them financially feasible at the moment, while her doting grandfather (Felipe de Alba) just wants her to find her "gold", whatever that may be.

While Ana works through her frustration over her situation, she finds some solace in the arms of Jimmy (Brian Sites), a fellow graduate who takes an interest in her. Generally, I find their relationship sweet, with all the tenderness of a first romance, but when Jimmy leaves for school Ana moodily bids him farewell, telling him that he'll find other girls at college and won't think twice about the chubby, insufficiently educated girl he left behind, and that's the last we see of him, though he doesn't seem that shallow and Ana's dire predictions about her own life fail to come true.

Ferrera does a fine job, and Ontiveros is a commanding presence. Her character is often comical, but the cruelty with which she treats her daughter makes her scenes somewhat uncomfortable. I'm only familiar with Lopez as a comedic actor, so it was interesting to see him in this motivational role, where he exudes teacherly concern.

The film wants to convey the message that women can go to college even though they are poor, that they can be beautiful even though they are plus-sized. It succeeds fairly well in this, though the tone is a little too preachy for my liking, and the title goes too far in the other direction, implying that skinny women are somehow lacking. The point is that body type shouldn't determine the ability to achieve one's goals.

The movie, written by Josefina Lopez and George LaVoo and directed by Patricia Cardoso, seems to aim specifically at a Hispanic-American audience. Not only is Jimmy the only major Caucasian character, most of the characters go back and forth between English and Spanish frequently, which I found confusing, particularly before it occurred to me to switch on the subtitles, since none are offered automatically when Spanish is being spoken.

Real Women Have Curves is a worthwhile tale of empowerment and certainly a testament to the acting skills of Ferrera and Ontiveros. Just make sure you turn on those subtitles...