Review By Jorge Barreto
Allure was a movie about 4 different women from different cultures that live in New York City. I watched the movie trailer for this movie before watching it and it looked liked this was going to be a dry and boring movie. This was not the case, the director did a pretty good job going between stories so it kept me wondering what was going to happen next.
The first woman introduced was a single young woman that was an escort, which at first, seemed like she didn’t enjoy what she was doing because she had to get high before doing her job. It turns out that she got addicted to drugs when she knew her previous boyfriend. Later, the movie showed that this woman had a daughter and that she currently did not have custody of her. At the end of the movie, the woman was shown driving by the court house and being able to spend time with her daughter. After that, she is shown throwing away the drugs and giving her escort company away to the employees. Perhaps she was only doing that line of work to get enough money to pay for the lawyers to get custody. If that was the case, the movie did not make that very clear.
The second woman introduced was a woman that was working two jobs as a cleaning lady. not too much is explained about this woman except the fact the she is living with her mother and does not like her father. Later during the movie we find that the woman is an illegal immigrant and she’s going to get deported. I think that the director is trying to portray how difficult it is to live in America when you are illegal. Having to work two jobs to support yourself, then if you are caught, you have to live everything behind. Maybe that was why she didn’t have a steady boyfriend either. maybe she though there is no point because she could get deported at any minute. Again the director did not make that very clear.
The third woman introduced was an Asian woman who was recording a protest in New York. During the whole movie, I was not clear as to why they were protesting but it seemed to be a big deal because they were talking about it during her college class. This woman was portraying the difficulty of an Asian student who is trying to get an education. In the background of this story, the Mom of the student is wanting her to come home so she can help take care of the father who is sick. The mother tries to guilt her but is unsuccessful. At the end of the movie the student is shown getting a job where she gets to do what she is studying. The actor does a good job showing that the student is struggling to not go home and help, but she knows what she needs do to better herself.
The last and fourth woman is a journalist who seems to be quite older than other three. This last woman is struggling to adapt to the new industry standard for journalism. She quits her job and gets another job where she is happier. This is the saddest of the four stories because the woman is working so much to succeed at her job that her husband looses interest in her. As a result, the husband tells the wife that he is going to leave her. unfortunately, this decision does not seem very important to him because he still goes to work as if it’s no big deal. This story does a good job showing that we still need to keep going when difficult things happen in our lives.
This movie does not have much action but it does keep you wanting to see how things are going to end up going for this women. I was disappointed to read at the end of the movie that all the stories were fictional. I think the movie would have been better if they had used real stories. it would have better depicted how hard life is for women, of different nationalities, to live in this country.
