Latino actors have long been outspoken about the types of roles they are frequently relegated to in most American productions: criminals, migrants, housekeepers. On that front, the romantic comedy “Say a Little Prayer” succeeds at defying the status quo by presenting professionally accomplished American Latino characters (who own enviable homes) in a plot that doesn’t involve poverty, immigration issues or marginalization. Regrettably, as harmless and brightly positive as it is on the representation front, that irreproachable approach is packaged in a film that’s overwhelmingly ordinary in all other respects.
Working from a screenplay by Nancy De Los Santos-Reza (also a producer), prolific director Patrick Perez Vidauri operates in an upbeat, broad comedic tone, somewhere between a sitcom and a telenovela, to follow Adela (Vannessa Vasquez), a 35-year-old owner of a soon-to-open art gallery in San Antonio, Texas. Conversely, her personal life seems less put-together as her boyfriend Enrique (Jack Murillo), shows no intention of proposing and is likely being unfaithful.
Her two closest pals embody distinct experiences within the spectrum of Latinidad, both culturally and racially: Ruby (Jackie Cruz) is a hoop earrings-wearing, short-tempered firecracker, and Cristina (Vivian Lamolli) a level-headed Afro-Latina originally from the Bronx. That’s only one instance in which the writing reveals itself overly preoccupied with ticking off boxes, and not as much with imbuing the concept, which consistently feels derivative in a saccharine manner, with brushes of originality.
The interpersonal conflicts and “twists” play out just as they have in countless other similar exploits, but with little in the form of reinvention. Fittingly, veteran Mexican actress Angélica María, whose career includes plenty of soap operas, appears in a small part as Adela’s concerned grandmother. The women in this family have all prayed to Anthony of Padua in order to find their ideal romantic partner. To avoid missing her chance at true love — on account of her age, apparently — Adela must recite the invocation. The religious component and the suggestion that she is not entirely complete until she has settled down feel all too recognizable in Latino stories, but not subverted or questioned much here.
As if summoned, artist Rafael Reza (Puerto Rican musician Luis Fonsi, now best known for the smash, crossover hit “Despacito”) meets Adela and Ruby separately, and wows them both with his gallantry. These parallel meetings will unsurprisingly cause trouble between the longtime friends. Unexpectedly, considering he has rarely acted outside of music videos, it’s Fonsi’s performance that shows the most dramatic restraint, or at least that’s the impression one gets when contrasted with the more over-the-top, at times stiltedly energetic turns by the rest of the cast. Not to waste Fonsi’s involvement, “Say a Little Prayer” features a musical sequence where his character casually performs the movie’s main track, “Prayer in Your Eyes,” for Adela on stage at a bar. The English-language ballad may not reach the heights of his club-friendly tracks, but it’s pleasantly serviceable here.
Every frame in “Say a Little Prayer” could serve as a glossy tourism campaign encouraging viewers to visit the lovely city of San Antonio. Perez Vidauri and cinematographer Mario Gallegos miss no chance to feature the famous River Walk and other landmarks, but while proficiently executed, the picture is visually mundane with an Instagram-friendly look that lacks aesthetic personality.
Thematically, “Say a Little Prayer” recalls “Tortilla Soup” and “Chasing Papi,” early 2000s titles that existed to entice the same demographic: comedies aimed at English-speaking Latino populations in the United States. The trio of actresses in “Soup,” however, each had more compellingly defined arcs that allowed for richer turns by those actresses. Here, Vasquez occasionally frees herself from the cheerful banter in the scenes with her girlfriends and steps into more emotionally taxing territory, but those slim glimmers of more layered acting dissipate against the writer and director’s triter impulses.
Forgettable as “Say a Little Prayer” stands, its existence, and that of titles like it, is necessary to build an ecosystem of U.S. Latino filmmaking that can encompass a variety of genres and storytelling ambitions catering to such a diverse demographic. In casting actors from different corners of Latinidad and not setting the narrative strictly within one specific national identity, the filmmakers procured a space that could potentially appeal to a wider audience in search of lighter fare. More effective as an aspirational exercise than as a piece of inspired cinema, “Say a Little Prayer” fulfills the promise of showing Latinos under a different socioeconomic light from what has existed in mainstream media in the past, but not much else.
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