A movie remade

In late January, 2014, I wrote about a movie we had gone to see called “Gloria.”

…. I almost completely forgot to write about a movie we saw last week, “Gloria.” The movie received a 98% approval rating among the critics on Rotten Tomatoes (100% by the top critics). My main hesitation was that the movie is in Spanish with subtitles. My reading is getting better, but speed and accuracy are still issues, and as is the case with so many things, stress does not help. But we read about the story and thought we would give it a try.

Fortunately, the movie does not have a tremendous amount of dialogue. A lot of it is really a visual experience. Gloria is a divorced woman with two grown children who have moved away. She has a rather boring job, and in the evenings she tries to meet men at social dance clubs for single adults. She meets a man named Rodolfo, and although they embark on a passionate relationship, he is unfortunately having a difficult time disentangling himself from the woman to whom he had been married and his grown children from that marriage. As expected, the relationship is not sustainable. Ultimately, Gloria finds the strength within herself to move forward in a positive way.

To be honest, I did not remember much about that movie until looking this up today, which I felt compelled to do because we went yesterday to see the 2019 American version of this movie called “Gloria Bell,” with Julianne Moore as Gloria and John Turturro as Arnold. Both films were written and directed by Chilean writer-director Sebastián Lelio. The basic story lines of the two movies are similar. Gloria is a divorcee with two grown children. Arnold is more recently divorced when they meet and begin seeing each other, but the relationship is rather rocky, primarily because Arnold has not really been able to fully separate himself from his first wife and children. Like the first version, this does not bode well for this couple, and Gloria’s rather violent reaction to Arnold’s treatment of her is somewhat surprising.

Barry and I agree that we need to go back and watch the 2014 version of “Gloria.”

Seeing the movie reminded me of the 1982 song of the same name that was written and performed by Laura Branigan and was on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for 36 weeks. She unfortunately died in 2004 at age 52 of a brain aneurysm. 

Have a great week.

Love,

Rebecca