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BEAUTY IN TROUBLE
Directed by Jan Hrebejk
Produced by Ondrej Trojan
Written by Hrebejk & Petr Jarchovsky
Director of Photography, Jan Malir
Edited by Vladimir Barak
Released by Menemsha Films
Czech with English subtitles
Czech Republic. 110 min. Not Rated
With Ana Geislerova, Roman Luknar, Jana Brejchova, Jiri, Schmitzer & Josef Abrham

Even though their 2000 film Divided We Fall was nominated for best foreign language film, for some strange reason screenwriters Jan Hrebejk and Petr Jarchovsky have been off Hollywood’s radar. Any A- or B- list actress would jump at the chance to work with the writing pair (Hrebejk directs). Their new film, like in their previous Up and Down, provides meaty roles for women of all ages.

That’s not to say that the duo would be at home anywhere else besides their native Czech Republic, which is one, if not the, main character in their films. In Beauty in Trouble, Hrebejk puts to good use the postcard sites of Prague, but to be a lucky or forward-thinking Czech means to be able to get the hell out of the country.

In terms of plot, the wry comedy couldn’t be more kitchen sink. Having lost everything in the 2002 flood and tired of being strapped for money, Marcela (Ana Geislerova) leaves her husband, even though the sweaty sex is great (at least by the wall-piercing sounds of it). He has turned their home into a chop shop – the easiest and fastest way for him to make money – and the dust is dangerous for their young asthmatic son.

She takes the boy and his older sister to her mother’s. But there, she’s under the thumb of another man, her stepfather Richard – petty (don’t dare eat his diabetic cookies) and pervy (he asks his 15-year-old step-granddaughter if she’s been felt up yet). As Risa, thin-lipped, beady-eyed Jiri Schmitzer could be Steve Buscemi’s Slavic doppelganger.

Moving back with her husband is not an option for Marcela; he has been busted and sent to prison. But a deus ex machina in the form of a guardian angel appears, Evzen (Josef Abrham). After leaving the country as a boy in 1956, he’s prospered in Italy, and has come back to reclaim his family’s villa. Besides being generous and open-minded, Evzen has something even better, a Tuscan winery, even if he is the same age as Marcela’s mother.

With an ear for sharp slice-of-life dialogue and a gradual build of the dramatic tension, Hrebejk and Jarchovsky take advantage of the near two-hour running time, turning what could be a contrived coincidence into a believable plot point. Scenes first seem like patchwork until midway through when all the story lines collide.

What distinguishes their characters, like the tyrannical Risa, from succumbing to arch types are their humorous, but never whimsically quirky, idiosyncrasies, from Marcela’s favorite drink, red wine mixed with Perrier, to her mother-in-law of many faiths, who kneels before a statue of the Virgin Mary but faithfully attends a threadbare evangelical church.

The pragmatic Marcela remains a woman of mystery, only slowly lowering her guard. In a generally unflashy role, the delicate-featured Ana Geislerova lives up to the title, bearing more than a passing resemblance to Paul Verhoeven’s muse Renee Soutendijk. Kent Turner
June 13, 2008