‘Prada to Nada’ stays true to Jane Austen classic
Jane Austen’s novels have often been remade into movies, many of
them period pieces about class and love in Victorian society. The
latest remake, out on DVD, is a different spin on one of the
classics,
”
Sense and Sensibility.
”
‘Prada to Nada’ stays true to Jane Austen classic
Jane Austen’s novels have often been remade into movies, many of them period pieces about class and love in Victorian society. The latest remake, out on DVD, is a different spin on one of the classics, “Sense and Sensibility.”
The movie has been updated to modern-day Los Angeles, with two Latina women who are removed from their roots.
Nora (Camilla Belle) is a law student while her sister Mary (Alexa Vega) is a serial shopper on Rodeo Drive. Neither has to worry about the cost of their lifestyles since their father is a rich, Beverly Hills homeowner. But the girls are in for a rude awakening when their father suddenly dies of a heart attack on his birthday.
First they discover that they have an older, illegitimate brother, Gabriel (Pablo Cruz,) whom they have never heard of before. He arrives at the funeral with his wife Olivia (April Bowlby.) The two are just in time for the reading of the will, expecting that the estate will be split three ways.
But unknown to any of them, their father was actually in bankruptcy. There is no money left and the only thing they have is the big, Beverly Hills mansion. Olivia offers to remodel the house so that the trio can sell it and split the money. Olivia is even more superficial than Mary, and she does her best to make the girls feel unwelcome. Rather than put up with the indignity of sharing the home with their new-found brother and his haughty wife, Nora persuades Mary to leave the home and set out on their own.
They have no money so they are forced to rely on their aunt, their mother’s sister who lives in a small home in East Los Angeles. For anyone who doesn’t know Southern California, East L.A. is as different from Beverly Hills as if they were separate countries. Aurelia (Adriana Barraza) may not have a lot, but she is willing to help the girls in anyway she can. But there are some conditions to them living with her. Nora decides to take a break from law school and get a paid job as a legal intern. Mary must sell her Cadillac Escalade and go back to college.
Both the girls feel out of place at first. They don’t speak English and they don’t know their way around the eastside. Mary is leery of the other people in the neighborhood, especially Bruno (Wilmer Valderrama,) whom she takes for a gangster. Mary is also weary of the food and the old hatchback car her aunt makes her drive after she sells the Cadillac.
While Mary does go back to college, her main focus is to win over the teacher’s assistant in her English class, who is a rich guy with Mexican roots. She even becomes interested in the culture to woo him.
Nora, meanwhile, finds a job working with Olivia’s brother Edward (Nicholas D’Agosto.) Edward is nothing like his sister. In fact, after the girls move out of their father’s house, Edward brings a moving van full of their favorite items to their aunt’s house so that his sister Olivia won’t through all their precious heirlooms away.
Edward’s firm focuses on corporate law, and it’s exactly what Nora wants to study. That is until she starts riding the bus to work and talks with some other bus riders who have been forced out of their jobs as cleaners. Nora begins to see the injustice and she persuades Edward to take a case pro bono. The more time Nora spends with Edward, the more she likes him, but she doesn’t think he fits into her 10-year plan.
Mary continues to seduce the teacher’s assistant, and she thinks she has him persuaded to buy back her father’s home from Olivia so she can return to her lavish lifestyle. When he leaves for a trip to Mexico, she waits for his return.
The story follows closely along the plot of “Sense and Sensibility,” as the girls learn to deal with their new lack of status in life and also to realize their flaw in judging people based on appearances or class. The acting is so-so, but that could be because the screenplay was somewhat lacking. The dialogue written for the characters is sometimes funny, but most of the behavior is predictable.
And it’s not the first movie to take on the riches to rags plot. Another similar movie “Material Girls,” came out in 2006. Real-life sisters Hilary and Haylie Duff play two wealthy sisters who are heir to a cosmetics fortune when scandal hits. They end up as poor as Nora and Mary. Tanzie (Hilary Duff) and Ava (Haylie Duff) are at first upset at their fall from grace, but they find a way to rebound from it just as Nora and Mary did. The movie is amusing and the dialogue is about as good as that in “From Prada to Nada.”
