ICON Magazine

bad movie

mark keresman

A Matador’s Mistress

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All the world loves a lover, especially if that lover is Manolete (1917-1947), the renowned bullfighter, played here by Adrian Brody. The lover that loves Manolete is Lupe Sino, a beautiful Communist actress portrayed by Penelope Cruz, who is not now a Communist or ever been to parties hosted by (known) Communists.

(I have it on good authority that Cruz once Frenchkissed a Libertarian…we were all young once.)

Bullfighting is exciting, except if you’re a bull or a gored matador. If you are concerned about the likelihood of bulls being harmed in A Matador’s Mistress (known as The Passion Within in the UK and Blood and Passion in Canada), relax—no bull is killed onscreen (but s/he is jabbed with those colorful “stingers”). The human characters, however, are somewhat bull and the film, despite the presence of two Oscar winners and the direction/screenplay by Menno Meyjes (The Color Purple, The Siege, Lionheart), is a danger to bipeds (specifically, humans) because it might bore them to death.

A biography is supposed to be engaging, being about

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a real person that was worth making a movie about.

(Would I pay to see a movie based on my life? I’d bloody well not.) This movie presents Manolete as a guy that majored in Marlon Brando Mumbling in acting school.

His manager is right out of central casting—chubby, balding, a cigarette always dangling from his mouth, wears a wide-brimmed hat, gruff yet oddly lovable—and he tells Manolete to stay away from Lupe because “she is a whore.” Yup, she’s bad news all right, and she’ll interfere with your training, champ! (In the Three Stooges short Punch Drunks, manager Moe tells boxer Curly.

“Fightin’ and dames don’t mix.”) If this movie were made in the USA in the 1940s this role would’ve been played by William Demarest; in the ‘60s, by Jesse White, more recently, by John Goodman or Pat Hingle…but I digress. The movie doesn’t show what inspired Manolete to become a bullfighter—he goes from coming from seemingly-nowheresville (walking down a dusty road carrying a suitcase) to becoming a famous bullfighter, but one never sees his rise to being Spain’s national hero,

Mickey Mantle and Ty Cobb rolled into one. Isn’t he ever afraid of getting bull-dozed? If he is, how does he deal with that fear?

What of the other half of this dynamically dreary duo?

Penelope Cruz is SO lovely, but the dialogue she’s forced to utter is caca de vaca. She coos into Manny’s ear at the beach, “I belong to you because I don’t belong to you.”

She also knows how to buck-up a guy’s confidence: “You are the most beautiful ugly man I’ve ever seen.”

We see them “hot for” each other but we never see why she’s captured Manny’s heart apart from her sensuous physicality—in fact, she doesn’t seem to be a very nice person.

A Matador’s Mistress has beautiful cinematography...but the pacing—oy. It’s slow, very slow. Brody does resemble Manolete and Cruz is a true siren, but something’s…missing. Unlike the best film biographies (Bugsy, Beau James, Milk, Serpico), it seems like there are chunks missing, crucial details that make you feel for the characters, whether you like them or not. n