How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer (2005) Online

I normally don't write reviews but after reading some of the negative things about HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS SPENT THEIR SUMMER I felt inclined to say something. I've seen this film twice now. Once at Sundance and then more recently at the Latino Internation Film Festival. Both times I can't help but get caught up in the sheer scope of the film. Normally scope is applied to a movie that covers a ton of different locations and makes the audience think that they've wandered the globe. That's not what this scope is. The scope here (and maybe that's the wrong word) is that the audience feels like we're part of this small town. We feel it's inner workings, we feel what life is like there, like we live there (not unlike what LONESTAR felt like.) It's fully imagined and is a total compliment to Riedel's strength as a director. Yes, the film isn't conventional as in it doesn't lay out everything in a tight, conventional structure...but I don't think that it's meant to. I think it was meant to again, let the audience get a taste of this small town, let us see what it feels like so when the characters in this film start to experience love, we feel how much it means to them because we live there too. Because it's the little things in life that make us happy, change us...and that's what this film is about and does so well. It shows us all this, but in a realistic way. In a way that US audiences aren't used to being shown. It's a strong vision with good writing, good acting, and a lot of heart. That's not say that it's an art movie either that's going to bore you. Because it doesn't. What it does is transport you to a definite time and place and does so in an entertaining way. Seriously. The humour here is great and again, dealt with in a realistic way, so that when things happen, we can relate. At least I could. And so could the two audiences I saw it with. People complain about not having any real movies, movies that aren't cookie cutter, and that are different. This is all of the above and something that I think most people would enjoy if they just give it a shot.

This is a wonderful film! I just saw it last night at the Riverrun Film Festival in Winston-Salem, NC last night with a packed house that was was beyond satisfied! Aside from the wonderful performances (especially Elizabeth Pena), the writing is insightful, especially knowing how young the filmmaker is. It is funny, touching, and REAL. The non-verbal scenes are especially strong and show a side of women we rarely see. We need more films like this that at fully explore the dynamics of being a woman is today's society. The characters are realistic and the story is compelling. The "Greek Chorus" of older Latino men that are seen throughout the film could be a film unto themselves. Most importantly, this film exposes us to a culture we don't know enough about. Most men won't appreciate this film, (a lot of the references will fly over their heads) but the First Wives Club audience will flock to it, as will senior citizens groups who will sing it's praises! If you enjoyed Real Women Have Curves you will LOVE this one! (same lead actress too!) This is a "chick flick" film with whole lot of heart.

We saw this film at Sundance, and looked forward to seeing it as it was filmed in our favorite state! The idea of the story is a good one, and there were many scenes that worked well. However, some editing is needed here. The movie is much too long (over 2 hours) and parts of it just dragged by. The filmmaker had lots to say, but much of what was said in the movie could have easily been shown in a much shorter version. Many scenes went on and on when we got the idea in the first few seconds. The dialog was stilted and unnatural in several scenes, which was distracting. There were some side stories that were completely unnecessary to the main idea of the film. However, the performances by the 3 lead actresses were wonderful, and the three of them make this movie worth watching.

*note* I see that I am in the "hated it" category for reviews. I didn't hate the movie, I just thought it was a bit flawed.

An amazingly intriguing piece of 3 different generations of Mexican/ American women in small town America driven by their search for love and honesty. The young director shows in depth the oddity and boredom that come with the life given to her 3 amazingly performed lead characters. The most wonderful casting of real people faces lets you be in their world and experience their love/pain, while underlining this with beautiful artistic images that seem like modern paintings at times. The choice of 35mm anamorphic also emphasizes the emptiness and overwhelmingly loneliness felt for this desert town. The 3 beautiful, funny and different story lines leave you with loaded emotional questions about love and following your heard. This is a must see independent movie!

I had a chance to catch this much over-hyped film at the Arizona International Film Festival and I have to say it really left me wanting, that is wanting less.

On the positive side, the performances are fantastic. Pena delivers a great performance, America is a real force and the grandmother stole the show.

On the negative side, the the languid pacing became too much and makes the film way too long at over two hours. I found myself checking my watch way too many times. The cinematographer must have had little direction as some of cinematography was very nice, but most of it felt as though he really wanted people to take notice of his work. I took notice, many times when I shouldn't. Many times the characters occupied the edge of the screen, even cut off the edge. This cinematographer really wanted to say something and what it said to me was "I make home movies". Many people seem to blame the editor for the length whereas I point to the Director. She is supposed to have the vision and she's ultimately responsible for the editing. Overly-long, silent sex scenes, dialog so stiff that even the actors couldn't make it work and a good half-hour of excess peripheral story really make this film drag.

The sad thing is this movie could be a really nice film with above average performances and some genuinely funny moments, but poor decisions made by the filmmaker drag this film down into the muck of overly self-important art-house schlock.

When you watch this yawner, first you'll feel offended nobody asked you to be in the movie. No one can act accept Ms Pena, the extras were throw ins from I guess Calexico, the streets were empty all the time no cars ever passed by in all scenes and no people were present. It must of been filmed at a ghost town. This film looked like it was made for a high school project, if you don't believe me please rent it and I dare you to differ unless your related to any of the film crew. Feel free to watch half of it because the second half doesn't get any better believe me. I've always liked Elizabeth Pena especially in La Bamba but this was way out of line...wow.

I saw "How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer" at its Arizona premier in Yuma. (The director is from a wide spot in the road about 25 miles down the road, not too far from the Mexican border.) It's a quiet film and I think that your average action film chuckle-head won't get it. The film is a deft study of three generations of Latina women (abuela, mama, y hija) who wind up seeking love during a single summer in a small border town in Arizona. Obviously, there's a fair amount of family biographical material that the director has drawn upon.

A few picks: This is a low budget piece, and sometimes, the seams show. For example, the crew could have used a better focus-puller. Some of the transitions are awkward. They skimped some on the music, which seems to cover the latter two-thirds of the effort.

Again, the is a quiet film. If you like razzle, go back to the basement, play some video games on your computer, and come up when your Mom calls you up for lunch. Otherwise, if you like quiet, well-acted films, that cover topics and populations not usually depicted in the cinema, go ahead and enjoy. I gave it a "10" for a first effort. Kick out the first effort part and it's still an "8".

I also agree with Tmvaz-1 and Wildcat. This film is terrible. I know it has been to Sundance, but why i do not know. I give credit and my three votes for the three lead actresses. They are phenomenal and the filmmakers should thank their graces that they have good performances cause without that, this film doesn't have anything. It is over 2 hours...feels like 4 and has some graphic scenes that are NOT necessary. The shots are very long and boring. My guess is they didn't get good coverage. As Wildcat and Tmvaz were saying, the shots weren't that great so i'm guessing it was poorly planned. Also, for some reason the people in the scene were always on like the far left of the screen...why? This film builds up to like 4 funny moments in the film and each moment has like a 30 minute build up. The grandmother is a fantastic actress and completely makes this movie bearable along with her two co-stars, but the story is incredibly boring and the movie is really just about sex. It really is a poorly told story. Maybe if it was like 45 minutes shorter, it would seem like a better movie.

Nice example of life in a small Arizona community before the influence of so many outsiders. Myself, growing up in a very similar community in southern Arizona was very familiar. They loneliness of being single and with a small pool of others in the same situation reminded me of my Mother ,sister and niece and what it was like for them. In a town of 212 people we often dated the same people,knew what everyone's business was and felt that a lot of relationships were incestuous,not in reality but because we grew up in a brotherly ,sisterly way since early childhood. The very girls I grew up with and thought of as sisters were my future dating partners. Just having someone there is a comfort especially as we get older. I think this explains why some stay in bad relationships,the fear of being alone. This film reminded me of my youth and it didn't matter that these were Hispanic women. I have found that economic ties bind you far more than racial ones. The movie was a little jerky and needed a better sound track but I liked it. I saw what must have been an autobiographical treatment for the director. Well done!

First off, after speaking to the director at the night of the Latin Film Festival here in New York, I would like to again commend her for a job well done. I am also a first time director so I definitely correlated to a lot of the jerky camera movements and experimental camera shots that were probably theorized but never executed to their fullest extent. There were also some doubtful moments with audio at times; however, having discussed these decisions with her personally I came to an understanding as to why they were done. This of course does not take away from the obvious, the film did drag, and it definitely needs some severe editing adjustments. The three raunchy sex scenes were left on screen for a reason, not only to try something new, but to give the audience a feel for a real life situation that women face in an every day environment. The scenes can be shortened however and still give the audience the same feel. The length they are at now makes the scenes disturbing and deteriorates from the comedic undertone that was originally intended by the director. There are many other comedic ploys executed that trick the audience into thinking something evident is about to happen, when it really doesn't. These techniques keep the audience in a(n) intriguing suspense, but you can only have our attention for so long.

The Garcia girls consist of women from three successive generations: Dona Genoveva (Lucy Gallardo), the septuagenarian matriarch of the clan; Lolita (Elizabeth Pena), her stressed-out single-mother daughter; and Blanca (America Ferrera), her just-beginning-to-learn-about-life teenaged granddaughter. As the middle person in the hierarchy, Lolita has her hands full dealing with not only her own issues of a middle-aged divorcée struggling to make something of her own life, but those of an aging mother who's suddenly decided she wants to learn how to drive and to become romantically involved with the family gardener, and of a daughter who's just beginning to learn about boys and the strange impulses and yearnings that are suddenly pouring forth from her rapidly changing body.

At its core, "How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer" shows how the problems of sex, love and relationships cut across all generational lines. Genoveva, for instance, is every bit as interested in achieving physical intimacy with a man as is her virginal teenaged granddaughter. In fact, this is one of the rare films that even acknowledges, let alone dramatizes, the fact that older people can be every bit as sexually preoccupied and sexually active as their much younger counterparts. And the movie also notes that the social and religious taboos placed on senior citizens having sex are every bit as intense as those placed on youngsters for the same thing. And caught in the middle of all this is Lolita, who often doesn't know quite what to make of either her mother or her daughter - or how to find the right balance between her own desires and needs and the responsibilities of being a breadwinner, a supportive daughter and a guiding force in her child's life.

As written and directed by Georgina Riedel, "How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer," which is set in a small dusty town in the Desert Southwest, focuses so intensely on the minutiae of the everyday lives of these women that it's bound to leave some in the audience feeling restive and impatient throughout large stretches of the film. The movie is filled with languid scenes where not a whole lot seems to be happening, and the pacing is often more desultory than it needs to be, which doesn't make the time go any faster. Yet, in a way, the style effectively picks up the rhythm of life in a sleepy town, where the wealth of experience seems frustratingly curtailed and the future itself sadly limited. In fact, Riedel periodically cuts away from the "action" to focus on a group of elderly gentlemen who sit around all day discussing what they've learned over the years about cars and girls, in roughly similar terms - which explains a great deal about just what these women have to deal with on a daily basis just trying to come to terms with their own roles in a largely male-dominated world. And beyond the uncompromisingly truthful and understated performances by the three leading ladies, the director demonstrates a keen eye for composition that makes the film at least visually interesting even when the drama itself isn't always engaging us completely.

Thus, for all its flaws, "How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer" provides many compelling insights into what it means to be a woman - in particular an Hispanic woman - in the modern world.

I LIKED the fact that there was no music as in most Hollywood movies where the music guides the viewer into whatever emotion or mood you're supposed to feel or experience in a particular scene. Here you sit and observe life. You are left to feel or not whatever. That's life. I felt like I was sitting there and part of a group of people whom I have known all my life. Life can be boring much of the time. Life is not a Hollywood spectacular with music and car chases and fancy locations. It's not about huge and terribly significant issues. If one looks at ones life you realize that it's all about getting up, brushing your teeth, having a simple cup of coffee, going to work, leaving work, going to the grocery store to buy stuff for dinner, having dinner and then going to bed. That's it! Most of the time for most people. Very ordinary, very mundane. But if you're interested in learning how a "mujer latina" might feel as these three ladies did it's a wonderful movie. Of course, in the long run it applies to many women "latina" or not. I don't know how many times, as I watched each of them, I found myself agreeing or thinking "gosh, I know how she feels," or "That's me! I know exactly what she's going through." I've seen those girls in Tucson a million times. I've seen all of them a million times. I don't think it's a film for most young people today because all they want is to be entertained.

I am currently a Media Arts student at the University of Arizona and we, as part of the Arizona International Film Festival, were lucky enough to have the soul of the creative team of this film down for a workshop today. Since three of the four, Georgina Riedel (director), Sean Olson (editor) and Lisa Fowle (sound editor), attended the U of A it was an even more exciting experience (Tobias Datum the DP was also present!). Not only are these some of the nicest people I've ever met they also have quite a film on their hands! It is fabulously shot, with some of the most creative, beautiful and just plain different shots I've seen in a film. The storyline is an interesting one that almost forces you to care about each of the characters. And the actors have given some fabulous performances! The script is realistic without being cheesy or forced. It took a serious subject and made a serious commentary on it while still being laugh-out-loud funny consistently! Overall, this film was simply amazing! I was honored to be able to watch it in the presence of the makers and to be able to meet them and talk to them. They really deserve the success they have attained and that they still have coming to them! Best of luck to this film!

ArizWildcat has the exact right idea! (and not just because I also went to the U of A!) I work in the town where this was filmed and set...and it's not a desolate as the movie depicts. The movie needs some serious editing...too many artsy languid shots. The story is OK...some funny parts, although I don't know if they were intended to be funny. Some of the scenes could have been shorter (a certain bathtub scene, for one!) It is not rated, as of yet, but it is NOT for children. With a good editor, this could be a better movie. One shot which started wide and SLOWLY zoomed in to close up was somewhat jerky. I was aware of the zoom in slow, jerking movement, rather than being a slowly fluid zoom. I'm not a filmmaker, but it looked like the amateurish job I would have done with my camcorder! Of course, I may be nitpicking, but those are the things I noticed.

How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer is a film about three generations of Mexican-American women who live in a small Arizona border town. It is the summer between her junior and senor year of high school for the youngest, played by America Ferrera. Elzabeth Pena plays her mother, a butcher shop owner on main street, and Lucy Gallardo plays Pena's mother, a woman who wonders if life is slowly slipping away. Pena has always lived her life doing the right things her mother instilled in her as a girl and which she has instilled in her daughter Ferrera. Now she's at a crossroads, as her mother (Gallardo) becomes involved with a gardener. The film weaves the stories of the three women around each other and builds slowly as each discovers what's right and wrong about life and romance for herself. Some viewers noted how the film portrays what some women actually have to face in real life. While this viewer acknowledges that also, the women in the film also lack prudent choice-making when it comes to romance. Perhaps the director is making a statement about the lack of available, worthwhile choices in small towns regarding romance. This might be especially true for non-white women of age, limited means, and education as the film illustrates. However, educated men are faced with some of the same issues and risks. Yet we see women like Pena, a responsible businesswoman on the surface, allow herself to be taken in by a lothario like Victor Reyes, played by Steven Bauer. Ferrera is also taken in by another jerk, while avoiding the simpleton who cares for her. Only the aging Gallardo seems to have made a responsible choice. It's likely that Gallardo has made many bad choices also in her younger days. It's disappointing that the director seems to be saying that women have to live a lifetime before making good choices. The sex scenes are all realistic and trump the unreal, idealistic notions people have about first encounters. Most of them probably are as disappointing and unfulfilling as the scenes in this film. The three female leads are all equally good, and they carry this film. By the end, each character reaches a stage in life where the choice she makes is best for her. The film may seem slow and tedious to some viewers, but it does have a quality that grabs and rewards the patient viewer. *** of 4 stars.

I finally rented this over the Christmas holiday. Like some of the other reviewers, I too am from the same small town where this film is set. When I came across this film at the video store, I thought it would be interesting to see Somerton on the big screen (or my flat screen). What I found instead, was a frighteningly accurate depiction of life in this small town. Not only does the film artistically capture three generations of beautiful, strong women, it also captures the soul of a small agriculturally based Latino town. The audio was a little interesting at first, but it really adds to the beauty of this film... To all who made this film a possibility, You don't make me want to live there ever again, but you did Somerton proud!!!