Princesas

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."

Film Threat Michael Ferraro

Princesas isn't the cliché "Pretty Woman" type romantic-comedy you'd expect – it's actually quite surprising.

LA Weekly John Patterson

Aranoa's bleak yet warmly humanistic Princesas deftly and sympathetically ponders the interlocked destinies of two Madrid prostitutes.

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.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Candela Peña is sensational in the leading role, and the film is big-hearted, poetic, sweet, sad and romantic.

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.

Variety Jonathan Holland

This loosely-structured pic feels authentic, its underdramatized script resolutely nonjudgmental.

Village Voice Melissa Levine

De Aranoa never condescends to his subjects, and Caye's mixture of aggression and tenderness is appealingly authentic.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.