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Princesas
IFC Films

Princesas reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 64 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.5 out of 10
based on 13 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 7 votes
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MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Candela Peña, Micaela Nevárez, Mariana Cordero, Llum Barrera, Violeta Pérez, Monica Van Campen, Flora Àlvarez, and María Ballesteros

Director and screenwriter Fernando León de Aranoa gives us a moving yet sobering tale of two young prostitutes in Madrid. (IFC Films)


GENRE(S): Drama  |  Foreign  
WRITTEN BY: Fernando León de Aranoa  
DIRECTED BY: Fernando León de Aranoa  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: March 27, 2007 
Theatrical: August 23, 2006 
RUNNING TIME: 113 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Spain 
LANGUAGE(S): Spanish (with English subtitles) 

Best Lead Actress (Peña), Best New Actress (Nevárez) and Best Original Song, 2006 Goya Awards; Nominated, Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema - Dramatic), 2006 Sundance Film Festival

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

88
TV Guide Ken Fox
Film works best as a soberly witty commentary on the workplace and makes an interesting companion piece to "Mondays in the Sun."
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80
Film Threat Michael Ferraro
Princesas isn't the cliché "Pretty Woman" type romantic-comedy you'd expect – it's actually quite surprising.
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80
LA Weekly John Patterson
Aranoa's bleak yet warmly humanistic Princesas deftly and sympathetically ponders the interlocked destinies of two Madrid prostitutes.
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75
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The actresses create wonderfully rich characters, and Luis Callejo, as Caye's unknowing boyfriend Manuel, and Antonio Durán, as the sadistic civil servant, fill out the very strong cast.
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70
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Candela Peña is sensational in the leading role, and the film is big-hearted, poetic, sweet, sad and romantic.
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70
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Indeed, Aranoa loves these women so completely that his film seems overly drawn out at nearly two hours and likely would have had greater effect had it been half an hour shorter. Even so, Princesas remains largely engaging and rewarding.
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70
Variety Jonathan Holland
This loosely-structured pic feels authentic, its underdramatized script resolutely nonjudgmental.
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60
Village Voice Melissa Levine
De Aranoa never condescends to his subjects, and Caye's mixture of aggression and tenderness is appealingly authentic.
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58
Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling
The way that Aranoa so clearly venerates his lively women feels Almodóvar-esque, but the movie aims most of all to suggest that hookerdom is hell -- and it's neither realistic nor unsentimental enough to pull that off.
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58
The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
It's well-acted and strikingly shot, and its depiction of contemporary Spanish squalor is hard to forget, but it never quite reconciles its high-drama situations with its low-key approach. It whispers when it really wants to shout.
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50
New York Post V.A. Musetto
Starts as a serious examination of the two women's lives, but it descends into a mushy melodrama complete with schmaltzy music and dewy cinematography.
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50
The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
While the director-screenwriter clearly has a sensitive affinity for his characters, his film lacks narrative momentum and fresh observations.
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40
The New York Times Nathan Lee
A maudlin melodrama about prostitutes in Madrid, Princesas is not, alas, the new film by Pedro Almodóvar, but a dilution of his manner by the writer-director Fernando León de Aranoa.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mike D. gave it a3:
Despite an interesting premise, this movie is dead boring. I thought initially that a movie about hookers couldn't be all that bad - and I was wrong. It's a sappy chick flick that drags on and on. Pass on this movie.

Chad S. gave it an8:
No pimps; Caye(Candela Pena) and Zulema(Micaela Nevarez) are doin' it for themselves, but they still have the humiliation and stigma of whoring to deal with. No glamour; that's what films like "Princesas" and Lizzie Borden's "Working Girls" want to make clear, prostitutes are like any other worker that provides a service for the customer. They either tolerate you, or hate you. Zulema is like a lot of prostitutes we've met in other movies about the world's oldest confession; she's saving up enough money to return home and care for her son. Caye, on the other hand, is more complex. This thirty-something woman lives at home with her parents as if she was a grad student. Caye clearly doesn't like her job, but she's like Judd Hirsch's character in "Taxi". Like Alex Riegert, she makes no pretenses about her occupation as being some temporary situation. This is her life. She's not like Nancy Allen in "Dressed to Kill", who turns tricks in order to make financial investments. Caye wants to be a hooker, and to be respected by the man she loves. The title refers to Caye's desire to revel in the perk that any other woman enjoys with her boyfriend; to be picked up from work. "Princesas" is graphic, but not too graphic; poignant, and never condescending towards its subject.

Diana R. gave it a10:
Excellent film and potrayal of the life of prostitutes and the bonds that are made between them. The actress Micaela Nevarez was exceptional and is a natural for the big screen.

Rose H. gave it a10:
I was very impressed with the acting. The story was very well protrayed.

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