The princesses of the title - and what a facile conceit that is - are Caye (Candela Pe a), a mousy Spaniard saving up for breast implants, and Zulema (Micaela Nev a rez), a foxy Dominican saving money to send back home. They will bond and squabble over the course of the film, in which narrative drive is replaced by an episodic drip of breakdowns, soul-searching, girly behavior (shopping, gossip, hairdressing) and improbable poetic monologues. Director Fernando Le o n de Aranoa is good with actors but lousy with ideas, though he broaches themes of class conflict and the economic basis of racism.
His best material observes the rivalry between a clique of native working girls and the dark-skinned streetwalkers newly arrived on the scene. Otherwise, Princesas rehearses "hooker with a heart of gold" tropes and indulges Almod o varian clich e s of Spanish spunk and solidarity. Nathan Lee, The New York Times Conversations With God, a drama based on the writing of Neale Donald Walsch, whose books have sold 7 million copies, is not quite a movie.
It's more of a 109-minute commercial for Walsch's 1995 book Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue. The bland film will inspire some. Most others will dismiss it by the end of this paragraph.
Walsch is "a modern day spiritual messenger whose words continue to touch the world in profound ways," according to his Web site, which also says "the Conversations With God series has redefined God and shifted spiritual paradigms around the globe." Director Stephen Simon's film toggles between Walsch's speaking engagement and the tribulations that got him God-talking. After suffering a broken neck in a car wreck, Walsch squanders his home, family and job and winds up scrounging for soda cans and Dumpster-diving for food.
Walsch hits bottom and decides to give life another try, but he finds society less than accommodating. Transients with scraggly beards and smelly clothes, it seems, have a hard time landing a job interview. In his darkest hour, Walsch questions God, who talks back in Walsch's voice.
God's chief message is: "You've got me all wrong." In typical underdog fashion, Walsch scrapes his life back together and starts to aim high. Who knows whether Walsch shoots the breeze with God, but you can believe that the being behind the messages sure knows how to sell books.
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