Hoy y mañana (2003) User Reviews

Puzzled by Her Decisions

[ObscureFilmLover · 6/10 · 1 October 2017]

Paula is 24 years old and has talent as an actress. She is following her dream in a difficult country. In spite of the fact that she's been on her own for two and maybe six years, she seems oblivious to the reality around her. She has a job which she loses early on because she's chronically late and additionally is three months behind on her rent and faces eviction the next day.

A wiser choice for Paula would have been to realize that she could not support herself and seek roommates to share expenses when she first started out on her career. So now she has to get 300 pesos in a day or become homeless so she eventually turns to a friend who is already a sex worker. They quickly are picked up by two boys their own ages who agree to pay them 50 pesos apiece. Her friend goes down on her client but Paula bolts and says she wants to be on her own. Her friend inexplicably gives her the 100 pesos.

On the street she is picked up by a middle aged man. Paula has no problem blowing him (unlike the first boy) but has failed to make the bargain and get the money up front. So he ends up stiffing her.

Then she hits pay dirt when Raoul, a nice looking middle aged recently separated man staying at an upscale hotel, picks her up. She is paid 200 pesos and Raoul is clearly wanting to become an established client. Paula blows him off, goes sees her boyfriend and they end up getting robbed in a night club.

She comes back to Raoul and agrees to spend the night for the money she needs for rent. However, after they have sex which she seems to enjoy, she breaks her promise and tries to leave early. Raoul then catches her and takes the money back.

Paula then goes to a club, picks up a sketchy older man and checks into a seedy hotel. He pays her 200 pesos and she blows him. When she tries to leave, he says they're not done and then beats her and rapes her. The movie then ends with Paula looking out over the city and presumably contemplating her future.

The writer/director in his notes says that Paula is a woman who won't compromise her deeply held moral beliefs. What those are is not clear. Without even discussing the morality of being a sex worker, Paula uses people when it suits her, borrowing from her Uncle and never intending to pay it back, lying to Raoul about spending the night, taking extreme measures to avoid her landlord who she owes nearly a thousand pesos.

Those actions may show someone who is street smart but they also show someone who has a fluid morality.

I realize this review is more about the character's story than it is about the quality of the film making. However, it's obvious that that is the main point of the film.

Unlovable heroine becomes prostitute

[bobdude-2 · 4/10 · 11 June 2005]

The acting seemed wooden to me. She was the same person before and after she turns to the world's oldest profession.

OK, jobs are hard to come by, I get that - but then she can't even keep hers. Her uncle runs a restaurant, she could work there too. I'm not saying it would be biscuit city, but there appear to be other options.

So, in one night she becomes a hardened whore - the character never really changed. She jumps right in to a lifestyle where nobody is a real person and everybody wants something from somebody. And she was no different! She didn't need any training in becoming a hooker, she seems to have been born saying "where's my money?"

Pacing was slow and there were one too many "riding behind her on the motor scooter" shots.

Not buying it - a waste of time.

Today and Tomorrow

[jotix100 · 10/10 · 8 March 2005]

This Argentine film came as a total surprise when it was shown in a cable channel recently. Alejandro Chomski has directed the film, which presents us with a young woman at a point in her life, so bleak, that appears hopeless.

If you haven't seen the film, please stop reading here.

The beautiful Antonella Costa, is Paula, an aspiring actress and a waitress in a restaurant. When we first meet her, she is seen in a restless state trying to get money from the ATM, without any luck. In a way, she must be expecting a miracle, knowing full well there is no money in the account. To make matters worse, the play she is seen rehearsing, will not open in a while and she loses her job at the bistro because she's been late three times, recently.

The film follows Paula through the streets of Buenos Aires trying to get a kind soul to lend her money to help her pay the back rent she owes to a landlord that wants her to give him what she owes. Everyone she asks to help, can't do anything for her. Even her own father, questions her instead of being kind.

In desperation, Paula goes to see a friend who is a prostitute. She feels that she will be able to get the funds she needs in order to survive by taking to the streets with this young woman. Things go from bad to worse. Everything she touches turns out to be wrong. The people she meets are predators that want their money's worth; they all use Paula to satisfy their own needs. The only kind soul she meets appears to be Raul, the Spaniard executive, but Paula doesn't want any part of him.

This film reflects the reality in Argentina in the turmoil that followed recent catastrophic government measures that left the people impoverished and unemployed because of the hard times the country was going through. That anxiety and despair is what we see in young Paula. There is not a ray of hope, which was the point Mr. Chomski, the director was trying to make.

The film owes everything to one of the most amazing performances by an actress in recent memory: Antonella Costa. She is the embodiment of Paula, the young woman at the center of the story. It's painful, at times, to watch what Paula is going through in front of our eyes. Yet, the film ends with a moment of reflexion and perhaps hope, as Paula gets out of the taxi that is taking her home, after a hard night, and she faces the immensity of the river as the sun is rising in the distance. In fact, we realize at this moment that Paula and the country she represents, will survive.

Watch this movie in order to see the magnificent young actress, Antonella Costa!

Pointless

[jerry_soung · 30 May 2008]

I watch movies more with emotions than analysis. Oftentimes I judge by whether the story or the characters touch me.

In the case of Hoy y mañana, I don't feel for the protagonist at all. She wondered aimlessly and lived by instinct. She had a lot of people caring for her, her uncle, her well-to-do pregnant friend, her boyfriend, and her dad, who seemed to have been trying to instill some sense into her forever. Even her prostitute friend was generous and helpful. She used all this kindness surrounding her, and then carelessly tossed them aside, like used tissues. Her aspiration, the theater work, which is supposed to be her identity, seemed shaky, without a promise to be in production, and ran by a slime.

The production quality of the movie is plain vanilla. The story line is just a digital camera following the protagonist around the streets over night. The clients she encountered seemed unconvincing. The hand-held camera work, Blairwitch Project style, went overboard. I had to turn away from the screen a few times. There's really no point in creating a style just for the sake of being different.

There are so many good movies out there, even if you are into indies and foreign films. Don't waste your time on this one.

Can you really do all of that in 1 night?

[mtraininjax · 3/10 · 4 May 2005]

It was an interesting picture, sure it shows a struggling actress trying to make ends meet. She turns to prostitution as a last resort to pay 4 months of back rent at 300 pesos each. She turns tricks for 50 pesos, then 100 pesos, then 200 and finally 300 pesos. All she wants is the money and does not care how she gets it.

Where the movie falls apart for me is that she is with 1 john here and then another john and then she meets her boyfriend, gets robbed, and then goes back out and performs sex on the same fellow as a few hours before, all in the same night. She then is raped and tortured and all of this in less than 12 hours.

It just seems far fetched and would have been better to put some real life in the character. Too often she plays a robot and acts as if men really get her a drink and then she says, "It's 200 and I am working" and these dopes fall for her. Shameless!

Is one of the best Argentinian films i have seen in my life

[evajuel · 10/10 · 4 February 2007]

Is one of the best Argentinian films i have seen in my life, almost a master piece. You should all see it.

Briefly, the story is:

After her gas is cut off, Paula - an aspiring actress - finds her day going from bad to worse. Unable to borrow money from her friends, or from her estranged father, she is then propositioned by the director of her play and loses her job. Needing 300 pesos to pay off her landlord, she turns to an old school friend, now a prostitute, in the hope of getting some cash. The perils she faces through this awful day continue through the night. Will she be able to cope with her new professions? What will tomorrow bring?

Setting it over the course of a single day and night, he manages to weave a series of perilous situations for his central character to overcome. But this is no simple tale of black-and-white morality, or an uplifting fable of hard work overcoming all.

Entitled plain Jane "actress" on first night of street hooking & cheating men

[dougjn · 4/10 · 3 April 2010]

I gave this film as high as a 4 mostly because it does bring a certain fascination in watching such a self entitled and deluded feminist snot get a real street life comeuppance. There is some verite in that.

To call the lead actress, who turns street / club hooker "beautiful" as a couple of reviewers do must be a joke. Or else plugs by female or male friends of hers. She's a 5 at best on a 10 scale, particularly by Argentine standards (where she may be a 4). She also has a boyish body and an utterly apparent heavily feminist, resentful attitude towards men. The sole thing she has going for her is being in her 20s.

She does the opposite of exude sexiness. Instead she exudes a sense of entitlement for being a 20 something girl and a self identifying actress, though not at all a successful one. Frankly I was amazed and non believing that she could be at all successful as anything but a bottom of the price ladder street hooker not to mention club hooker, with her non looks, non body and non sexiness, and radiating hostile resentment. I'd never pick her, no matter how thin the competition. This was in other words an entirely feminist entitled and angry look at prostitution, from the frame among many other clichéd things you can guess and be right, of believing absolutely any 20 something girl can demand and get top street dollar as a hooker. Well at least if she isn't obese.

She richly deserves to be sacked at her waitressing job which she takes utterly for granted despite the fact her rent is way overdue and she has no money for food or anything else, and even though she's obviously just barely not already been sacked for repeated prior lateness etc., at the time when she actually is. She's utterly alienated and exasperated her comfortable but not rich professional father and it seems the rest of her family, which she's long stopped communicating with. She also has "too much pride" to really tell him the dire straights she's in. In fact she proclaims to him "I do have a job" when she's just been sacked from it earlier that day.

What is there to like about this girl? I found absolutely nothing. I couldn't stand her in any way.

I found myself practically cheering when after repeatedly trying to cheat men by giving them less than they'd paid for in every encounter, the last man of her night forcibly takes what he paid for. After giving her 200 pesos (which by then we know is high dollar for full on sex over a good long time period in a room), and she then tries to immediately bolt the room after giving him a preliminary blowjob that maybe took all of five minutes if that, he forcibly stops her from leaving and forcibly takes the full on sex with her he'd paid for, while angrily telling her street slags are plentiful, and she moans back, "I am not a puta" (whore). Not only is she one, but a plain Jane, highly unpleasant cheating puta who's totally not worth bottom peso. Hooray, she was forcibly made to provide what the customer she solicited paid high pesos for.

All you rad feminists and manginas can get outraged all you want. To call what happens to her in the end rape as one user reviewer did is ridiculous. Sure you can rape prostitutes but he paid top dollar and she tried to run out with just a five minute blow job, which clearly wasn't what he paid for. He forced her to give him what he did pay for. That isn't rape. If she'd offered him back all but 50 pesos, maybe, but she hardly did that. The self styled entitled serial thief. Just like she tried to steal from the guy she rather liked but didn't want to, who paid her 300 pesos to spend the night. And then ran off after one shag and his dozing off – until he caught her and took back most (but not all, he probably took back 200 pesos it seemed) of what he'd paid her, saying, rightly "that's all you're worth").

She richly deserved it and I hope she was taught a lesson. Beautiful young girl? Not by the furthest stretch, in any way whatsoever. She's horrid. But perhaps no longer feeling so invulnerable nor entitled. Which would be a good thing.

Excellent interpretation by Antonella Costa, movie shown in Cannes

[fredyfriedlander · 31 May 2003]

This movie was shown as part of "A certain regard" in Cannes Film Festival this year (2003). It was well received by the critics and shows that Antonella Costa (Garage Olimpo, Figli/Hijos) is an excellent actress and that she has a bright future. The movie is a reflection of the crisis in Argentina which lead people to do things that normally should not happen. It is Alejandro Chomsky's first feature, and was obviously finished before the new Argentinian president's election. Fortunately, although still a bit too early to be sure, there are some encouraging signs of optimism in Argentina. Anyway the economical situation is still critical and the unemployment (in a certain way one of the movie's subject) is always very high in Argentina. This movie shows that there is a lot of young talent in this country. Let's hope it will be released abroad.

Excellent performance but...

[rsnunez · 8/10 · 12 November 2005]

The performance by Antonella Costa is just superb, however there are some problems with the plot and how the story develops. The movie catches with singular dramatic intensity the consequences of economic crisis in Argentina and its effects on many young female. Of course, the effects of such crises are not exclusive of Argentina. They repeat with terrifying regularity all over Latin America.

It is a movie with brains made on a low-low budget, and that is why it is killed by the whole scene on the elevator. I will not elaborate on the details of such scene, but any person that has ever used an elevator in Argentina or in any other country of the world knows that elevators do not do that. There were many ways to achieve the dramatic purposes of such scene without doing what Chomski did.

I will also add to my criticism the fact that having that beautiful city that is Buenos Aires as a background, the movie uses little or nothing of it.

That is a shame because the city offers many opportunities to develop good cinematography without spending too much.

Overall good on the performance of Antonella, great on the underlying criticism of the economic situation in Argentina, but a flaw that kind of kill the movie as an artistic exercise.