Gloria – a movie review by Roz Tarsziz 3/5

It is both heartening and scary to realise that age is no barrier to behaving badly.

Gloria is a story about love – parental love for adult children and romantic and sexual love. Gloria of the title is woman of a certain age living in Santiago, Chile.

To merely describe her as middle aged would not do her justice.  Divorced for over a decade, she is attractive and in good shape and there are a few opportunities to check this out in naked detail.

Confident in her dealings with men, she does not see enough of her adult children and appears to have a decent job – not that she spends much time at her desk. She meets Rodolfo, older and divorced for a year and he falls hard for her. Rodolfo is supporting his two adult daughters as well as his ex-wife and they depend on him.

While this film is about Gloria, she remains somewhat aloof and enigmatic.  She drinks and smokes too much  – including an unexpected windfall of pot – and holds on to her emotions.   Rodolfo is almost overwhelmed by his new love but finds it hard to distance himself from his adult children.

When he lets Gloria down badly for the second time, she gets drunk and wakes up alone on a beach.

Rodolfo, who has stated that he wants to remake himself and leave his past self behind, proves weak and unequal to the task of separating himself from his two clinging daughters.

Gloria probably could have been set in any European city but its South American setting gives a fillip to this story of two mature adults whose actions are not always grown up.

The two lead performances are excellent and while we might not approve of the characters’ behaviours, we can believe that they are real..