WOMAN ON TOP

Even Penélope Cruz can't spice up this middling romantic comedy.

There is a scene in Woman on Top, where Penélope Cruz is filming her first cooking show for a San Francisco television station. Lights... camera... action! As if by magic, Penelope grows luminous, the backdrop fades to indigo as though she were preparing her feast on a twilight beach, and a light breeze comes from nowhere, blowing her long luscious hair back from her shoulders. Just as the producer of the TV show exclaims, "My god... the camera loves her!" you find yourself thinking the same thing. It is moments like this that you really realize how unfair it is that some humans get a ridiculous amount of Gorgeous Genes, but at the same time you're sheepishly grateful that we can at least pay to be in their presence for a couple hours, as though we all run in the same circles. That's what movie stars are for.

Woman on Top is really an extremely light, fluffy concoction, obviously whipped together to introduce Penélope to American audiences in the most palpable way... i.e. using a mix of romance, food, and fantasy. Penélope runs away from her home in Brazil after catching her handsome, yet caddish husband (Murilo Benício) in bed with another woman. She runs far and fast, all the way to the home of her best "girlfriend" Monica (Harold Perrineau Jr.) a transvestite with a heart of gold residing in, where else, San Francisco.

Penélope immediately gets a gig as the host of her own cooking show "Passion Food" and has the entire male population of SF frothing at the mouth (considering this was SF, I was a bit surprised that she didn't have to fight off the women, too... but that would just make everything more complicated... a transvestite is enough for the mainstream audiences...). Just when Penélope is being courted by the sweet, boyish producer (Mark Feuerstein) her husband shows up in town, trying to woo her back. Well, gosh, what to do?

Woman on Top distinguishes itself from your average romantic comedy by adding spices of Brazilian culture: we're treated to camera-ready (literally) plates of heaping "ethnic" food (which always looks better than anything in our refrigerators), we get glimpses of Brazilian magic and hocus-pocus, and are serenaded by the tropical, sensuous sounds of Brazilian music.

But other than the Brazilian flavor, and the undeniable star-wattage of Penélope Cruz, Woman on Top is somehow rather... bland. Other than a bit of an unpredictable ending, the story kind of plods along, leaving you in a numb (but harmless) trance, the gentle tropical music lulling you into a stupor. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but when you are barely moved by the happy ending, and find yourself simply hungry instead, it's time to go out and buy the soundtrack instead and return the movie to the video store.