From Prada to Nada

The sister on the left never dresses like that. She is in cute but comfy clothes in the whole movie, except for the obligatory makeover montage (which doesn't take). And the sister on the right never works, for shoes or otherwise.

I watched From Prada to Nada with my parents a couple days ago, just in time for Mexico's Independence Day. It's a romcom retelling of Sense & Sensibility, which I didn't know and which made me happy because I love retellings of my favorite books (as long as they're good) and because I had been feeling meh about the movie (my dad talked me into watching it). Really, the title is groan-worthy and riches-to-rags stories with shopaholic girls are so done, but this movie was actually surprisingly good. The representations of the Hispanics/Latinos in the movie were real. Usually it's somewhat cringeworthy, but these were real Latino people saying things Latina aunts or whatever would totally say. This is because the director and the script writers were Hispanic, which pleased me. About 70% of what happened with the two main characters (the Elinor ["Nora"] and Marianne ["Mary"] characters) was just as lame/cringeworthy as you'd think, but overall it wasn't half bad. Was it predictable? Yes. I mean, if you've read S&S you know what's going to happen, obviously. And you could probably go through this movie with a Latino movie cliché checklist (cholas? check. La Migra joke? check. And so on). What I found interesting (besides the rather genuine portrayals of Latinos) was the stuff they added to the sisters' characters. Besides making Mary be all swept up in lurve with Willoughby/Rodrigo, they added the dimension that she wanted to go back to her old way of life in Beverly Hills and get out of East LA/the barrio, making her love of the hot TA more gold-digger-y/mercenary and less romantic. And Nora, instead of secretly loving Edward and then finding out he was engaged the whole time, went the standard "we banter! He likes me but I am scared and Turn My Back on Love!" and you know what happens next. It's interesting how they didn't want Elinor to be the boring perfect one and so they made her storyline more standard romcom. In S&S, Elinor really does nothing wrong while the only thing Marianne does wrong is love recklessly without thinking of propriety or consequences (well, she is quite rude and self-centered too). However, it's like for the movie they didn't want the girls to be that blameless, so they made Mary a gold digger and Nora all obsessed with her 10 year plan. idk. Overall I did like the movie and it made me sad I don't have like twelve Spanish names I can trot out at the drop of a hat (at most I have four but only two are Spanish) or a family that throws huge block parties with salsa music for El Grito where I can dress like Frida Kahlo (but I am always wanting to do that anyway. It's a pity I'm so white-looking). Overall I liked this movie, which you can watch for free on Amazon Prime. 3.5 out of 5 tacos.

Elinor: Uptight Career Woman Who Don't Need No Man (law student version). Can't speak Spanish but tries to learn. Played by a half-Brazilian actress (I was worried for a bit that they cast a white actress until I looked the movie up on IMDb).
Marianne: slutty shopaholic party girl with gold digger tendencies. Can't speak Spanish and tries to deny her Mexican heritage. Played by a half-Venezuelan actress (Carmen from Spy Kids!).
Mrs. Dashwood: dead, obviously was just like Marianne/Mary. Represented by painting.
Margaret Dashwood: axed (not necessary to story)
Mr. Dashwood: Gabriel Sr. models his mustache after Pedro Infante's, dies within the first 8 minutes of movie. Represented by topiary.
Edward Ferrars: Edward Ferris, hot lawyer. White but looks more Mexican than Nora does for some reason (played by Italian actor). Speaks Spanish badly.
John Willoughby: Rodrigo something, hot Mexican TA who turns out to be married and was just using Mary. Well, at least he got her to read a book.
Colonel Brandon: Wilmer Valderrama, hot thuggy vato who is secretly an artist/carpenter with a heart of gold. The above two actually speak Spanish well.
Sir John Middleton: actually became the girls' tia, an awesome lady who with her two comadres is also Mrs. Jennings.
John Dashwood: Gabriel Jr., who turns out to be Gabriel Sr.'s illegitimate son and has daddy issues because his father never acknowledged him, wanting to save his marriage to the girls' mom. A pushover and super wimpy, lets his wife control him, so just like the book.
Fanny Dashwood: forgot her name but she is a right bitch, just like in the book. Blonde WASP.
Lucy Steele: Bitch-in-law's bestie, is set up with Edward and he's engaged to her like immediately. Also white, but interestingly she does no scheming, just passively does whatever "Fanny" says. Is only relevant as an obstacle to Edward and Nora getting together.
Setting: Beverly Hills, East LA
Recurring themes: cultural heritage, importance of family (obvs, that's in every movie with more than one Latino person), Cielito Lindo song