Why Woman on Top is tops - STAR BYTES by Butch Francisco

One of my favorite foreign language films is Camo Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate). I like it because of its great and unusual story, its slice of history (Mexico during the turbulent years) and for all those mouth-watering food shown in the movie.

The currently- showing film Woman on Top is also a movie about food. It casts Madrileña Penelope Cruz as Isabella, a Brazilian woman gifted with extraordinary skills in the kitchen.

Isabella is madly in love with her husband Toninho (Murilo Benicio) who, in turn, also loves her dearly. Trouble is, Toninho still chases after other girls. When Isabella one time catches him in the act, she promptly leaves him and her beloved hometown in Brazil and flies to San Francisco where she lives with a childhood friend named Monica – actually a black gay man (played by Harold Perrineau Jr.).

In the beginning, she has difficulty finding a job (as a chef in any of the city’s restaurants) – until she eventually makes do with the position of part-time cooking instructor at an adult education program.

Her lucky break comes when a television producer named Cliff Lloyd (Mark Feuerstein) falls in love with her and the aroma of her cooking. Lloyd immediately offers her a cooking show at the local TV station – with her as the star.

The show becomes an instant hit and she is completely happy with her new-found status as a celebrity. Complications only set in when her husband suddenly reappears.

Unlike Como Agua Para Chocolate, Woman on Top is no great film. In fact, it received mostly bad reviews from film critics abroad. But no matter what they say about Woman on Top, I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed watching it – and this is due mostly to personal reasons.

First of all, I am the type of viewer who would have an orgasm (visual orgasm – if there is such a thing) at the sight of food whether in real life, in the movies or on television. And the director of Woman on Top, Venezuelan - born Fina Torres, really knows how to make food look extra delectable on the big screen. Even the sight of plain coconut milk being squeezed by the hands of Penelope Cruz looks so rich and tempting. And then, there are the other Brazilian delicacies which more or less resemble Bicol cuisine.

And I’m telling you, director Fina Torres is so good at photographing food that one scene in the movie showing fresh watermelon made me scour the whole of Philcoa the following day in search of pakwan.

Alas, there was none so I settled for cantaloupes instead.

Another reason I like Woman on Top is the fact that it is also about television which is close to my heart. I could therefore relate and commiserate with the film’s characters because I fairly understand the business. I know the things that go into it are the things that have to be done for the sake of the ratings. In Woman on Top, the network executives accidentally hit on the idea of making Isabella’s husband serenade her while she’s cooking on the air. It’s a dumb idea, but it further improved the show’s ratings.

Another factor that made me like the film is its music: samba, choro, forro and bossa nova which is a personal favorite. From what I was told, the director spent two years just researching the songs that were used in the film.

But the effort didn’t really go to waste. I particularly liked the song Cinzas (Ashes in English) which was written by Brazilian composer Silvio Caldas way back in the 1940s. (it’s now supposed to be a classic).

Then, I also liked the film’s location – San Francisco which is my third favorite city in the United States (after Boston and New York). Of course, the director didn’t really use much of outdoor San Francisco, but somehow, you feel the coolness of the city while watching it.

The final reason for my liking Woman on Top is that I became an instant fan of Penelope Cruz while watching it. Penelope, of course, isn’t all that familiar to Pinoy moviegoers. But she’ll surely be remembered by cineastes for having starred in Pedro Almodovar’s movie, All About My Mother, which won best foreign film in both the Oscar and Golden Globe Awards.

She may not be that great an actress – at least, not yet – but she is so remarkably beautiful. (If she can only do something about her rather thin legs – and the way she walks).

In Woman on Top, she is a hundred percent perfect and effective in her role as an alluring cooking show host. She may not be as inventive in the kitchen compared to the heroine Tita in Like Water for Chocolate, but with that kind of face and figure, she can just be brewing coffee and people will still watch her.

Penelope Cruz’ co-stars in the film are also effective in their respective roles – particularly Mark Feuerstein who plays the executive producer. Again, I can relate to his character because I know what a typical executive producer is like – having worked with so many of them in the past.

Harold Perrineau, Jr. (as Monica, Isabella’s cross-dressing friend), on the other hand, is so funny, he provides a great part of the film’s humor.

Woman on Top – on the whole – doesn’t really have the depth to eventually turn it into a classic. But I still relished its every scene and found a great part of the film delicious.

One foreign film critic may have cattily branded Penelope Cruz as "a woman at bottom," but as far as I’m concerned, this Spanish actress and her film Woman on Top will always be tops.