Rent The Heiresses (2018)

A truly great film - The Heiresses review by TE

One of the best films I have seen in the last 10 years, a brilliantly evolving story that engages the viewer from the start and leaves us wanting more at the end.

The relationship at the heart of the film is sketched out in a few telling strokes, paving the way for the tenderly erotic re-awakening of life for Chela.

This is humane and truthful film-making at its very best.

Very slow and unconvincing - The Heiresses review by JR

This film has been garlanded with praise and awards, but apart from a few scenes (like the karoke one), I felt like shouting "Just get on with it!" The main actress has an expressionless face with permanently surprised eyebrows and a swollen top lip as if she had just been smacked on the mouth.

The plot is full of holes. Chela and Chiquita live in a run down but formerly grand old house in Asuncion. They have fallen on hard times and the first scene shows a wealthy-looking buyer inspecting their belongings. Chiquita is lively and engaging, but is soon sent to prison for fraud or a debt - we're not told which or why. Despite being totally skint, Chela remains in the house, waited on hand and foot - literally, by a very submissive maid. Chela is zombie-like and I thought she was suffering from dementia or on strong medication, but despite that (and not having a driver's license) she unaccountably becomes a de facto taxi driver for the rich old ladies of Asuncion. Through this, she meets a young woman who, rather unbelievably tries to get her to take up smoking and tries to seduce her. Meanwhile Chiquita seems to be having a whale of a time in the women's prison. There is a germ of a good film here, but this is not it.

Exploring relationships - The Heiresses review by DF

An excellent and very profound movie exploring relationships in the seemingly unchanging world of a bourgeois society of older women in in the Paraguayan city of Asuncion.  But, for the two main characters, Chela and Chiquita, things are changing.  Times are hard and they have resorted to selling off the silver and furniture of their once opulent home.  For Chela, the partnership has started to fade and due to some sort of shady financial dealings Chiquita ends up in prison (a rather colourful place!).  Chela, who is wonderfully played by Ana Brun, drifts into a sort of ad hoc role of driver for her elderly card playing neighbours.  These outings for Chela liberate her from her previously closeted existence and she starts tentatively to seek a relationship with a younger woman, Angy.  Angy is without inhibitions in her lifestyle, street smart, and she soon realises what Chela might desire. Chela is emerging from a sheltered repressed existence; how will she respond?

Throughout the movie there are vignettes of this strange segment of society in Asuncion; for example, Chela and Chiquita, although on their uppers, still employ a 'maid' seemingly part of the traditional 'old ways' of class division.

A good movie, sombre but well worth watching.