Francisca Aronsson It is even in the soup of series and movie lovers. “Hit” (Spain) and “LaLola” (Mexico) are some examples of streaming productions with performances by the Peruvian. Her latest role in the film “Perra Vida” (Chile) is a teenager who insists on adopting a street dog. Although we are not facing a Chilean work of art, the film is saved from fiasco with the performances of the main actresses, Aronsson and Daniela Ramírez, and with that deep canine feeling of the plot that, truth be told, is always an element that improves the fictions.
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Chilean actress Daniela Ramírez is Romina, a divorced lawyer who lives with her daughter Javiera (Francisca Aronsson). The teenager is upset with her mother for being too strict and grumpy with her. Somehow, Javiera is influenced by her father and his young girlfriend to move out of her mother’s house. That’s when the appearance of Azumi, the emotional support dog of an alcoholic in the process of detoxification, Alex (Felipe Braun), changes everything. In this situation, Romina does everything possible to keep the animal in her home, including offering to rent the dog and her master secretly from her daughter, and thus delay her move.
The Chilean director Gabriela Sobarzo and the actors Daniela Ramírez and Felipe Braun started the project “Perra vida” in 2018, when they did not know if it would be a series or a movie and when the pets were not yet characters in the story, the cast said in a Press conference. The premiere of the film in Prime Video reaffirms the feared comedy style of Chilean producer Miguel Asensio, whom Chilean critics know both for his work in “The Dark Side of Desire” (2015) with Keanu Reeves and Ana de Armas and for being the creator of fresh Latin American comedies without major aspirations, like “SOS Mamis” (2020).
How to say it? The thing is that, despite the effort, there are creative teams that transcend in a small or minimal period of time due to their level of production and superficiality when making fictions. This is the case of “Perra vida”, which was the first preference among Prime Video subscribers during its premiere, but is more questioned due to its quality and its low competitiveness as a comedy. Is she so bad that not even Francisca Aronsson can save her? Below is a summary of its pros and cons.
THE GOOD
“Perra vida” has the first two ingredients of a romantic comedy. Plot one sounds comical and predictable. It develops the relationship between Romina (Ramírez) and her daughter, Javiera (Aronsson), who forces her mother to house a lost dog at home. When the owner appears, the mother holds him back with a speech of “if you take the dog, I will lose my daughter.”
Plot two works as a typical Latin American soap opera parallel, where the protagonists, Daniela and the dog’s owner Alex, fall in love. The same affection is born between the secondary characters, Sofía (Paz Bascuñán)—Romina’s sister, veterinarian and lover of animals—and Claudio (Jorge Zabaleta)—the best friend of the dog’s owner who is withdrawn from society. because of a viral video—. The latter are well-known actors in the Chilean environment, not to mention that Bascuñán is also the wife of the film’s producer.
Aronsson, for his part, demonstrates the effort to achieve a perfect Chilean accent. She is a constant in the young actress’s career for having the neutral language to be more competitive in international auditions. As Javiera, she does a good job alongside the well-applauded Daniela Ramírez, because they aim to be entertaining and save some funny parts of a script without big surprises.
From ‘yapa’, an interesting appearance in the film is Sergio Chamy, an 88-year-old retired Chilean who was the main character of the Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker, Maite Alberdi, in her film “The Mole Agent.” Chamy debuts as an actor in “Perra vida” with the character of the passionate boyfriend of Claudio’s veteran mother and, for his few minutes of fame, he adds his spark without stealing the spotlight.
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THE BAD
Without a doubt, director Gabriela Sobarzo got out of bed one day, thinking about making an entertaining comedy, but she forgot about the minimum technical details that a director must consider. “Perra vida” not only has problems with audio lag and a weak cinematographic image, but it overflows with its simplicity in the jokes and overloads the actors (and the ‘dogs’) with the dramatic work to be a slightly more film. tender and entertaining.
The type of comedy is evident from the first scene, where Daniela comes across the excrement of a domestic dog. It is confirmed with the caricature of animal lovers, personified in Sofía (Paz Bascuñán), a veterinarian who takes care of her pet as if it were her child. Maybe, they can be nice moments. However, the backgroundless dialogue, poppy soundtrack, and cumbersome character drama only meet its goal of hours of viewing.
VERDICT
“Perra vida” is a nice comedy to watch on the weekend, but be careful not to have expectations of an emotional film with sweet canines and saturated colors. The good performances, in the case of Aronsson, Ramírez and some secondary characters, rescue the moments of humor to pass the time, but there is always the option of ‘going back’ if it seems like a waste of time after 5 minutes of viewing .
Skip Enter | Trailer for “Bitch Life”. (Source: Prime Video)
