| La mujer de mi hermano | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Ricardo de Montreuil |
| Produced by | Stan Jakuvowicz (Shallow Entertainment) Diego Valenzuela Jaime Bayly Muvie's Producciones |
| Written by | Jaime Bayly |
| Starring | Bárbara Mori Manolo Cardona Christian Meier |
| Music by | Angelo Milli |
| Cinematography | Andrés Sánchez |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox (Worldwide) Lions Gate Entertainment (United States and Canada) |
| Release date(s) | Mexico November 4, 2005 |
| Language | Spanish |
La mujer de mi hermano ("The wife of my brother") is a 2005 Mexican film directed by Ricardo de Montreuil, based on the novel of the same name by the Peruvian writer, journalist and TV host Jaime Bayly. It starred Bárbara Mori, Manolo Cardona, Christian Meier, and Mexican legend Angélica Aragón.
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La Mujer De Mi Hermano ( "My Brother's Wife") could be considered in a category of films that critic Alissa Quart calls 'hyperlink movies', in which multiple stories take place, each affecting the other in ways that characters are unaware of, all the while using radically different aesthetic and cinematic techniques to define the mise en scène of each storyline.
A woman bored with marriage discovers the pleasure and pain of infidelity in this stylish drama from Mexico. Zoe (Bárbara Mori) is a beautiful woman who has been married to Ignacio (Christian Meier) for nearly a decade. While Zoe still loves her husband, she feels the spark has gone out of their relationship, and she's become restless and anxious. Hoping to find the excitement she craves in forbidden fruit, Zoe falls into an affair with Gonzalo (Manolo Cardona), Ignacio's rough-edged but handsome brother. Zoe and Gonzalo's passionate affair is deeply satisfying to them both, but the adulterous couple must deal with the sharp sting of betrayal when Ignacio finds out they've been sleeping together. However the story takes a big turn when we find out the affair has only been a revenge towards his brother for Gonzalo. He is taking revenge for his brother raping him when he was younger therefore destroying his life.
For this film, director Ricardo de Montreuil and novelist Bayly intended to take the story in a separate and somewhat different direction than the novel. "When María Eugenia Argomedo and I began collaborating on the script, we were hoping to make something new out of the material, rather than simply reproducing the book onto film," said Montreuil on an IFC interview.
The film received mixed reviews from critics. They attacked the film's plot for being overtly dramatic, while defenders interpreted it as a truthful film, one that tries to depict the most realistic aspects of relationships.[1] La Mujer de mi Hermano rates poorly on RottenTomatoes.com, with a 21% approval rating, the consensus being, "No better than an R-rated telenovela, with the requisite love..." [2] It currently holds a 41% rating on Metacritic, which indicates "some medium reaction."
By the time the movie debuted in the Festival de Cine Iberoamericano de Huelva on November 26, 2005, it had already been seen in Mexico by 850,000 people. The film won second place at the festival that year, after Luis Mandoki's Voces inocentes, and was expected to reach one million total spectators and two million dollars at the box-office.
In the first week of exhibition it had a box-office total of nine million pesos (approximately 800,000 dollars). The movie opened in third place after Chicken Little and The Legend of Zorro. In the first weekend of the United States release the film grossed slightly over 1 million dollars (an uncommon feat for a Mexican film in the American market).