I stumbled across this series while searching through the HBO Latino section on HBO On Demand. It was listed with its Spanish title, "Mujer de Fases," but since I'm working on my Spanish, I gave it a shot, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it's a Brazilian comedy, in Portuguese, with English subtitles.
The series centers on Graça, a recently divorced 30-something real estate agent in Porto Alegre. Graça is looking for Mr. Right. The show's unique take on this familiar formula is to have each episode include two very different men who enter Graça's life. Episode one, for example, is called "A Smoker and a Mystic," in which Graça hooks up with both a chain-smoker and a guru. In her efforts to make things work, she takes up smoking for the first time in her life, and also throws herself into the spiritual teachings of the guru. In other words, she's something of an emotional chameleon, taking on the most prominent characteristics of her various love interests in each episode.
The format of having two men of extremely different types in each episode is what makes the series work. Graça herself, played with deadpan humor by Elisa Volpatto, is something of a blank slate, but her best friend Selma has strong opinions on everything, and Selma's daughter Tereza offers her share of sardonic humor to the mix. For outright humor, though, my two favorite characters in the series are Graça's ex, Gilberto, who uses exaggerated facial expressions, wry comments, and physical comedy to get a laugh; and Graça's mother Hilda, who bustles around, saying what she thinks with disarming candor.
The formula works, but it's also very predictable, so that by the third or fourth episode, you're thinking, "I've seen this before," and you have. The show is a comedy, but I don't find myself laughing out loud very often. It's also hard to believe that Graça, who is strikingly beautiful and seems intelligent enough, would settle for some of the guys she ends up becoming so obsessed with, let alone so willingly alter her behaviors to match theirs.
Would I watch this if it were in English? Probably not, but it's a great way to practice my Portuguese listening skills, and the actors all speak with an accent that is relatively neutral, at least to my American ears. I also like seeing the daily life of middle-class Brazilians, even as depicted through the potentially distorted lens of a TV sitcom.
Availability:
- HBO On Demand
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