Mark Reviews Movies: THE HEIRESSES

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 24, 2019

Chela (Ana Brun) and Chiquita (Margarita Irun) have been together for so long that each woman can mostly anticipate what the other will do. Chiquita knows that Chela is a homebody, so when the subject of a friend's upcoming birthday party arises, Chiquita knows she'll face some resistance from her partner. For as much as she rejects the idea of going out, Chela gives the impression that she knows she's in a losing battle with Chiquita. Chela can lie in bed, protest, or remain silent as much as she wants. At a certain point, her willful partner will come out ahead.

The women at the center of The Heiresses are polar opposites. Chela is reserved, quiet, and stoically proud. Chiquita is almost forceful, talkative, and happily gregarious. It's a wonder that they've put up with each other for as long as they have. We think it has to do with the old saying that opposites attract, but the ideal for such a relationship would be that each partner helps to bring out another side to the other. In this case, we might be inclined to say that this relationship is of mutual benefit to these women if, say, Chiquita helped to bring Chela out of her shell or if Chela perhaps calmed some of Chiquita's impulsiveness.

Instead, the opening scene of writer/director Marcelo Martinessi's observant film has Chela hiding in another room, watching through a slightly opened door as a woman inspects some things that are for sale in the couple's stately home. She never emerges, even when the woman has questions about items that can't be answered by the maid. While all this is unfolding, there's a dim rumble on the soundtrack that seems to grow louder as time passes. Quite subtly, by way of the obscured view and the bass-heavy din, Martinessi quickly establishes a claustrophobic sense of Chela's inner life. It's a life lived from a distance, in the shadows of other people and her mind, and without any say on her part for what will happen.

The real subtlety of Martinessi's film is how our perspective of each of these women and their relationship gradually shifts, without much happening by way of a story. At first, even though Martinessi clearly wants us to empathize with the character from the start, it appears that Chela is almost a weight on the relationship, Chiquita's life, and, for that matter, her own life.

Other details emerge that confirm what the opening scene shows. She's a painter, who spends her days inside. She has always lived in this house in Asunción, Paraguay's capital city. Indeed, she was born in it and inherited it, along with everything in it, from her parents. Chela is quite particular about the way her afternoon coffee and pills are organized on the tray. Most importantly to this story, she doesn't have a driver's license, because leaving the house must only be for special occasions for her. After all, if any driving does need to be done, Chiquita is there.

The story involves Chiquita's financial problems. She's in debt—hence why Chela is selling multiple things around the house. She resents this, of course, but when she vocalizes her frustration, Chiquita finds a reason to be angry with Chela—a small point in the moment that seems vital in retrospect.

A court filing escalates the debt to fraud, which means that prison time is almost a certainty. The couple's friends have put together some money for the two, but Chela refuses it, embarrassed that their wealthy friends know about the problems in her home (Chiquita takes the money anyway—again, something that's worth considering later). Chiquita prepares Chela for life without her, hiring a new maid named Pati (Nilda Gonzalez) to take care of Chela's every need while she's in prison. Alone in the house, Chela can't sleep and fears the slightest noise.

The rest of the story arises when an elderly neighbor (played by María Martins) asks Chela for a ride to a card game at a friend's house. Chela ends up running something like a taxi service for the little old ladies in the neighborhood, making reasonable money and getting out of the house regularly by doing so. Angy (Ana Ivanova), the daughter of one of those women, asks Chela if she would drive her and her mother out of town for the mother's weekly medical treatments. After some hesitation—and practice driving on a busy motorway—she agrees.

This is a wholly simple story, with little drama, save for Chela's rising attraction to Angy. The point to twofold: primarily, to watch Chela become a completely different woman—sociable, caring, and even passionate—in Chiquita's absence and, secondarily, to observe how Chiquita, who—social butterfly that she is—flourishes in prison, seems perfectly fine without Chela. We get the sense that Chiquita is in her element anywhere she might go, and we also start to note how she takes control of her social circle while incarcerated. If she can transform the day-to-day lives of imprisoned criminals in a matter of weeks, what does that say about how she might have affected the life of a woman with whom she lived for decades?

What seems like a very simple story, about a woman blossoming under new circumstances, becomes a rather complex one, about how people can be defined by their partners and how an imbalance of control in a relationship is almost imperceptible. With The Heiresses, Martinessi reveals a lot in what these characters don't say.

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