jotix100
We are taken to a classroom in Santiago, Chile, at the start of this story, where children are asked to answer a test about sex education. The beautiful teacher, Luisa, never discusses the results with her students. Luisa, we realize, is having an affair with Jorge, the father of a boy in her class. At the same time, Luisa has her own live-in boyfriend. It appears the kids in Luisa's sex education course couldn't care less about the subject.To complicate things further, Then we meet Emilio and Maca, parents of a another boy in Luisa's class who are having problems of their own. It appears Maca doesn't like sex as much as Emilio, who seems to be ready for it at all times. Alvaro and Elena are a young couple with a daughter in the same school. They all come together one night as Luisia is trying to impress on all parents the importance of sexual education for children that will be teen agers soon in school, as well as at home.That this film was done in Chile is even more surprising. The country, a conservative stronghold in South America, shows how times are changing in this funny comedy directed by Boris Quercia, who also appears as Emilio. Mr. Quercia's film, one of the most popular films of all times in that country doesn't want to shock, on the contrary, he presents his story as a sort of waking call for his fellow citizens into speaking frankly about such thorny issue, that we are sure is not one of the things people don't feel free to talk about in the country.The ensemble cast Mr. Quercia gathered do impressive work. Sigrid Alegria is excellent as Luisa. Alvaro Rudolphy appears as Alvaro, a man whose wife, Elena, is expecting and feels the urge to look for sexual adventures with his secretary and willing women. Alvaro, on the other hand, is a typical exponent of the machismo mentality when he accuses his wife of getting involved with a friend from her university days, who happens to be gay. Patricio Contreras, is also fine a s Jorge, the writer who is involved with Luisa. Maria Izquierdo makes a comic contribution playing Maca, Emilio's wife.It appears that someone that had an issue with the movie keeps marking the comments submitted to IMDb as not useful. Take this comedy for what it really is and let other viewers make up their minds. Boris Quercia deserves better and perhaps he will show us on his next film.
LatinoMan
It seems that for a movie to be called a masterwork it must show either obscure localisms or close shots of women's underwear. Believe or not, people acclaim this Chilean feature for its sexual content, not for whatever superficial insights on life it might have. This is an empty, banal, vulgar and poorly executed film. I can't believe the Chilean gov. backed it up. It looks so cheap! From the bad casting, too old or young mothers, to amateurish acting, to a truly awful script this is a movie you should avoid to all costs. Since when a movie must depend on sexual content to carry whatever point it intends to make? Said that, despite the excessive sexual graphism of this movie, excessive for a supposedly non soft core porn flick, I don't have any issue with it; I can accept and try to understand why the director would want to fill with cheap scenes his work. However, I think he failed miserable with this supposed sexual comedy. In the end, he only achieved to impress some of his countrymen, people hungry for panties shots in a domestic film or just because the movie apparently depicts a Chilean (and Latinamerican by extension) reality.So I can't recommend this futile exercise on mediocrity to anybody. It is really a trashy film. Instead, watch Playboy on cable or a real movie. In fact, I was generous when I gave this garbage a 3. It deserves nothing!
peteito
Sexo Con Amor is a glorified soap-opera and has become the most successful home grown film in Chilean cinematic history. Its soap opera status is no bad thing, in fact the film's success stems from the fact that, like the previous reocrd holding film, El Chacotero Sentimental, which itself was based on a radio programme, it provides a refreshing slice of reality of what the real Chilean gets up to in bed.In a country by tradition conseravtive and Catholic, it may surprise viewers to see the director having sex with his teenage niece on top of a washing machine, or his wife masturbating with a courgette, yet this comic hyperbole serves to emphasise the fact that Chileans ARE at times unfaithful, they do have sex before marriage. Indeed, the apparent soap opera layer to the film masks the issues raised. As the title implies, the film focuses on the issues of sex and love, and the 6 main protagonists comprise 3 couples who attend an evening class to discuss the problems they have with their sex lives. Among the problems which director Boris Quercia relates to the viewers are those of infidelity (in a country where divorce is illegal), unwanted pregnancy (in a country where abortion is illegal), homosexuality (in a continent where machismo dominates) and incest. Alcohol, drugs, and violence play secondary roles to the sexual politics taking place. The extreme comedy provided by the explosion of truths surrounding the Chilean en la cama projects the film as a statement in Latin American film - this is the Chilean in all his naked glory. Many will criticise the soap opera 'dumbing down' of major issues, but this accessibility has reached the largest audience in domestic film history, and also, those critics would do well to read a book by Mario Vargas Llosa 'Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter'. Not only does this book provide the Latin American opinion of the Argentine, but it portrays the soap opera as a central part of contemporary culture, which it is. Soap opera becomes escapism, art, and most importantly, reality. It also subtley raises issues such as divorce, the role of the father figure, and national identity. Quercia uses soap opera for the same effects. Social criticisms are raised in a comic manner, and the film helps to define a recent boom in Chilean cinema, alongside El Chacotero Sentimental and Taxi Para Tres.The authentic chileanness is what comes to define this film. Mise-en-scene such as glasses of pisco-sour, bottles of vino tinto chileno, images of Cerro San Cristobal, Alvaro eating Reineta fish, talk of the World Cup in '98 - this is Chilean film basking in its Chileanness. The language of a cast plucked mainly from soap operas, such as ex-Pura Sangre star Sigrid Alegria, is a strong Chilean brand of Castellano, 'como estay?' 'al tiro' 'huevon' etc, make the film truely Chilean. As a foreigner watching the film shortly after its release in Cine Hoyts Huerfanos in Santiago, the scene when Pato Contreras sits in his car, swearing at Alegria for leaving him for her own boyfriend, his tirade of Chilean insults ('concha su madre' etc), made me, and the other 1000 people present, laugh out loud. I released that the locals where actually laughing at themselves, at their idiosyncratic way of speaking Spanish. Finally there was a film, 100% Chilean, with which Chilean people could identify, with which a Chilean director could raise social questions without he himself 'disappearing' (as in the days of the Military Regime). Sexo Con Amor may be an extended soap opera, but it is a defining moment in Chilean, and in Latin American, film history.
mikyle
Sexo Con Amor was much anticipated and became an immediate box office hit in its origin country Chile. Being an explicit sex-comedy in an uptight country this was understandable. But that's about everything positive that can be said about it. The storyline is foreseeable, the characters schematic and the humour childish. Kind of an uncensored 90-minutes Chilean soap comedy.Go see any Argentinian movie instead.