GLORIA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - An innocuous, watchable, well-acted Valentine treat for the blu-rinse set.

"Mmmm. He looks yummy to me."

Gloria (2013) **1/2
Dir. Sebastián Lelio
Starring: Paulina Garcia, Sergio Hernández

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Gloria (Paulina Garcia) is a late-50s divorcee. She's not really looking for long-term romance, but loving to dance and getting some occasional bone is what leads her to trawl singles clubs to fulfill both natural yearnings.

The clubs are full, but the pickings are slim.

One night, our decently-presevered Chilean GMILF catches the roving eye of the old coot Rodolfo (Sergio Hernández). He's a charmer though and before you can say "sopaipilla", his saggy buttocks are thrusting his knotted chorizo into her warm coliza (doggy-style, 'natch) and love, O! Sweet love, love, love begins a-wafting though the air.

"Hello Gloria! I am Rodolfo!
As you can plainly see,
I am quite the catch!
So let's do some coochy-coochy, baby!"

Of course, happiness will need to be fleeting in order for the movie to even remotely serve up some conflict and sure enough, the happily boinking oldsters face the sort of challenges that will keep us on the edges of our seats wondering if a happily-ever-after is in the cards. As well, let's not forget that this is no mere romance, but is, first and foremost, a celebration of long-in-tooth female empowerment. The result? Plenty o' soul searching, hard choices and freedom-infused abandon.

Okay, the movie isn't quite as sickening as I've no doubt made it out to be. It's well made, watchable and Garcia, who won the Best Actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival, is a fetching leading lady. The script gives her plenty of story twists and character details to allow for a performance that's as occasionally delightful as it's nuanced. As well, in a day and age when so many movies are little more than overblown video games aimed at brain-dead youth, I have to admit that it sure's nice to see movies about, uh, adults.

In spite of this, though, so many of these movies appear to be aimed at those who are a mere few steps away from their graves. In this sense, Gloria offers up few surprises and seems machine-tooled to appeal to old people who don't much go to the movies anymore. In this regard, the movie lacks bite. It has a few gentle nibbles, but it's mostly toothless. Seriously, are blue-rinse types and their squires so in need of innocuous stuff like this to get them out to the movies? Well, most of them don't seem to be interested much in Nebraska, so chances are, movies like Gloria are exactly what they're looking for.

Gloria is in theatrical release for Valentine's Day via Mongrel Media.