'Women is Losers' Review
NR
Runtime: 1 Hr and 24 Minutes
Production Companies: Bowery Hills Entertainment, Look At The Moon Pictures
Distributor: N/A
Director: Lissette Feliciano
Writer: Lissette Feliciano
Cast: Lorenza Izzo, Bryan Craig, Simu Liu
Release Date: N/A
In 1960s San Francisco, a once-promising catholic school girl, Celina Guerrera, sets out to rise above the oppression of poverty and invest in a future for herself that sets new precedents for the time.
For the past several years, Lorenza Izzo has been actively working in film and television, becoming a recognizable name in the process. After working with Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino, she has proven to be a hella talented actress with the ability to captivate viewers with her range. In Lissette Feliciano’s Women is Losers, Izzo gets to shine in a leading role once again, providing an engaging and fully committed performance as Celina Guerrera, an independent Hispanic woman in Catholic school who has to navigate a male-dominated world on her own. She controls the scene with her bright energy, making the most of the material she’s given. Though the screenplay itself is relatively weak and relies heavily on telegraphed tropes, Izzo truly delivers with her performance. Considering this is her first leading role in a movie since 2015’s Knock Knock, it’s sheer evidence that she deserves more roles because she’s simply that talented.
The film shines the most when Izzo is paired with Chrissie Fit, who plays her best friend Marty. The two are full of vibrant, upbeat energy, and the chemistry they share early on is relatively strong. Fit is another actress who has so much talent and it would be cool to see her star in a leading role herself one day. You often see her as the comedic relief in projects such as the Pitch Perfect sequels and Awkwafina is Nora From Queens. Her comedic timing is great and she’s still got those great moves that we’ve been seeing since Teen Beach Movie. These are two hella talented Latina actresses who have put in the work and deserve to have more moments in the spotlight.
Women Is Losers marks the debut of writer/director Lissette Feliciano. As far as direction goes, it’s a solid project, confidently showcasing her array of drama and comedy while getting solid performances from her ensemble. She takes ambitious risks from the very first scene where a heated argument between Celina and her baby daddy Mateo takes place on the steps of a San Francisco street, transitioning into a meta, fourth wall break in a well-crafted oner. Unfortunately, when it comes to the screenplay, the film really falls flat, for it’s riddled with cliches and feels tonally confused.
Despite Lorenza Izzo’s outstanding central performance, Women Is Losers is a scatterbrained, frustrating feminist drama that doesn’t know what lane it wants to take in either story or tone. I commend Feliciano for crafting such an engaging premise — a slice-of-life drama about a working-class Hispanic woman in ‘60s San Francisco dealing with sexism and navigating life independently — but the execution is underwhelming and weak. Despite everything that Celina Guerrera goes through to succeed as an independent woman, she’s not a very enticing character to follow. There’s a frustrating amount of simplicity and wide-eyedness to Celina where she treads nearly everything lightly and whenever she tries to stand her ground, she’s constantly punished for it by either the men in her life or the universe itself. Even with the timeline of topical themes that are so on-the-nose, Celina doesn’t do anything to stand out or make you root for her. Tell me if you’ve seen any of these narrative threads before:
A woman is raised in a toxic household with an abusive father who is an alcoholic.
A woman gets pregnant from her war veteran boyfriend who becomes a deadbeat dad.
A woman has to raise a child on her very own while working multiple jobs to earn a living.
A woman has a very charming yet scheming boss who offers to be a mentor and support her, but you know he has ulterior motives.
These are a few of the many obstacles that Celina faces and none of them are enticing in their execution; the film feels like it’s on autopilot. The melodrama lacks subtlety and substance, for all of the themes regarding feminism, racism, abuse, and abortion are all so on-the-nose and one-dimensional. It operates on a weird comedy-to-drama dial and neither is effective. The fourth wall breaks don't add much weight to the narrative and they occur at the most jarring moments, disrupting a tone that already felt unnatural. The screenplay plays to its tropes so blatantly that it makes the pacing feel slower than it already is, and the film is barely over 80 minutes long. Though the direction is confident and visually engaging, Women Is Losers is written on a frustrating, telegraphed level that lacks any subtlety, nuance, or even personality. Despite the film’s fantastic lead and solid technical aspects, its screenplay desperately needed confidence and boldness rather than playing into tropes that feel exhausted at this point.
