Review of Quinceañera (2006) by Tiffany M — 15 Aug 2006

Magdalena is a 14-year-old girl growing up in the gentrifying Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles surrounded by her extended family of first and second generation Mexican-Americans. The film begins at her cousin Eileen's quinceañera, a lavish affair all about hair, makeup, fancy dresses, food, dancing, and riding in the back of a Hummer limo. In case you don't know what a quinceañera is, it's a big party to celebrate Latina girls' fifteenth birthdays, sort of a cross between a bat mitzvah and a wedding.

Magdalena's own fifteenth birthday is coming up, but it looks like her quinceañera is going to be a bit more modest than her cousin's. Her frugal preacher father views the milestone as more of a religious event than as an excuse for a wild party. And much to Magdalena's dismay, it seems that Jesus doesn't approve of Hummer limos. I've got to admit, I'm kind of with him on that one. A combat vehicle with a bar in the back. How stupid is that?

As if the limo thing isn't bad enough, rather than being allowed to buy her own brand new party dress, Magdalena is expected to wear an altered version of her cousin Eileen's. She reluctantly goes along with this plan, but when she tries on the newly fitted dress, she (and everyone else in the room) shockingly discovers that it's way too tight in the belly. Ruh roh.

Magdalena has a boyfriend but she insists that the two of them never actually "did it". Her mother buys her a home pregnancy test and the results seem to indicate otherwise. Magdalena sticks to her guns, claiming that she's a pregnant virgin. Her father goes nuts, not buying her story, so she packs her things and goes to live with her kindly old Uncle Tomas, a nonjudgmental 83-year-old who makes his living selling Mexican hot chocolate out of a shopping cart.

Magdalena's cousin Carlos, a tatooed, muscle-bound carwash employee, is already living there. He was recently thrown out by his own father on suspicion of being gay. It's not long before Carlos catches the eye of the new owners of the house in front of Uncle Tomas', an upscale, gay, white couple partial to Latino boys and threesomes.

There's nothing groundbreaking about [i]Quinceañera[/i] and it's predictable all the way, but it's still a nice little movie with sympathetic characters. Now that I think about it, it vaguely resembles the plot of [i]Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer[/i] with all of the little misfits running away from home and banding together to protect themselves from the Abominable Snowman, which in this case is "religious intolerance". With "gentrification" coming in a close second. So maybe two snowmen.

Though this movie won the Audience Award at Sundance and is being touted as a crowd-pleaser, I often felt a bit detached when watching it, especially during a slew of tear-jerky scenes near the end. Perhaps the Sundance audience was comprised entirely of 15-year-old Latina girls. Or maybe it's just me.