From Prada to Nada made $3.3 million at the box office, both foreign and domestic. I’m surprised to read that it was that much. I happened to watch the film on Netflix this past weekend when I had nothing better to do than wash clothes.
The notion of a remake of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and plucking Marianne and Elinor Dashwood from Barton Cottage and landing them in 21st Century L.A. intrigued me, for Emma Woodhouse’s move from tranquil Highbury to a Beverly Hills high school in Clueless was a resounding success with both critics and viewers. I also liked the idea of switching up cultures, for hadn’t Ang Lee’s hit, Eat Drink Man Woman, been successfully transformed into the delightful Tortilla Soup with its Mexican-American family substituting for the Japanese chef and his daughters? But I quickly came to the conclusion that From Prada to Nada is to Jane Austen what a black velvet painting is to the Mona Lisa.
Here then is the story:
Mary, Papa, and Nora before his fatal heart attack
Once upon a time in Beverley Hills there lived two very pretty girls in a house called Bonita Casita. They had a Papa but no Mama.
Mary (Alexa Vega) on Rodeo Drive.
One was short and ditzy, liked to shop, and wore party dresses morning, noon, and night. Her name was Mary Dominguez (MD = Marianne Dashwood).
Nora turned norange at Papa's funeral.
The other was a tall, practical, intellectual, wannabee lawyer named Nora (Elinor Dashwood). While exotically beautiful, she suffered from a fatal Hollywood condition called orange skin. This viewer suspects it was to make her look more cliched Mexican, but should I really be so cynical? Mary had this condition to a lesser extent, and both girls swung from looking tanned to grossly ill, depending on lighting conditions.
I am happy to report that Nora (Camilla Belle) fully recovered from her skin malady shortly after filming.
Neither girl spoke Spanish, a fact that was mentioned often until it was pounded into the viewers’ brains.
While celebrating his birthday with his daughters, Papa falls flat on his face and dies, leaving the two bewildered girls penniless, for everything he seemingly owned belonged to the banks. The girls must move from their cozy environment in 90210 to a tacky neighborhood in East L.A., which is like asking a Swiss palace guard to work in a Columbian prison on short notice.
Casa Bonita in Beverly Hills
Before that indignity, they meet their half-brother, Gabriel, a surprise from their papa’s past, who arrives for the funeral with his cheesy avaricious girlfriend, Olivia. It seems that bro and his tootsie want to renovate Papa’s mansion and sell it for a profit. In other words, bro flips houses for a living. Real class.
Q'eulle surprise! Half-brother Gabriel (Pablo Cruz) arrives at the funeral with his Tootsie, Olivia (April Bolwby), and she's mean, while he's a wuss
Without a living breathing mother to guide them, as Jane Austen had intended, Maria and Nora have nowhere to go but to their good-hearted aunt’s house all the way over to a neighborhood filled with barrios, gangstahs, and, worse, taco joints. There the girls encounter Bruno (Colonel Brandon) a handsome darkly Latino who obviously did not attend Beverly Hills High.
Bruno (Wilmer Valerrama) and Mary.
He’s friendly, but Mary snubs him, for she begins to suspect that he works for a living and that she must share a bedroom with her sister. (Not that the two facts have anything to do with each other, but my sentence is no crazier than the plot of the film.)
New house, new neighborhood
In rapid succession From Prada to Nada throws at least one cliche per minute at the viewer, including a small sweat shop in Auntie’s living room, bad girls in the neighborhood, and clothes and interiors that could have been created by Agador (Armand and Albert’s gay Cuban houseboy in The Birdcage). How could this movie stand a chance with intelligent viewers when charactes are named Bad Guy #s 1-3, Comrade, Fiesta guest, and Chola (urban dictionary definition: the girl my brother gets pregnant)?
I imagine that people living in East L.A. were horrified to see Jane Austen’s fine tale mangled and twisted beyond recognition.
Sewing in Auntie's living room and prepared to hide the evidence at a moment's notice in case of an immigration raid.
The movie stumbles towards its inevitable cliched ending. Edward Ferris falls instantly for Nora and gives her a splendid job in his law firm. They part and then they come together for no reason that I can fathom, except that he is always coming around the house with a truck filled with big items.
Rodrigo (Kuno Becker) meets the aunties
Mary falls head over heels (instead of twisting her heel in the English countryside) for a tutor named Rodgrigo Fuentes, Willoughby’s stand in. He eventually visits Mexico then dumps her and purchases Papa’s hideously renovated mansion from her flipper bro.
Bruno's amazing studio in his tiny house
Flipper bro turns out to be a nice guy, as does Bruno, who happens to be an immensely talented artist living in the body of a mechanic. For some reason, after her car accident Mary totally flips for the ever patient, long-suffering Bruno, who was able to see past her materialistic ways the moment he met her.
Bruno in his barrio uniform.
After I finished watching this movie, I realized I should have stayed in the basement with my laundry and read a good book as I waited for my washer and dryer to finish spinning. The producers of this clunker forgot one extremely important asset that no self respecting movie can do without: a well-written, intelligent script.
Not all the good intentions in the world of Latinizing Jane Austen, and thus making her more available to those who might otherwise be turned off by her English characters, can save a film so completely devoid of entertainment, originality and wit.
No Tex-Mex film is complete without a fiesta.
I imagine that Lady Catherine de Bourgh would have said of this film: “I take no leave of it. I send it no compliments. It deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.” Amen to that.
Edward Ferris (Nicolas d'Agosto), the prince charming, comes bearing gifts, sweeping Nora off her feet.
Jane Austen's World 
Thank you for warning me away from this clunker! It sounds horrid. Your description of the Orange Skin Disease reminded me of this post I read a while back about Hollywood’s obsession with teal-and-orange color balancing. It’s written by an indie filmmaker, and is a fascinating look at one aspect of film editing I had never considered before. It might be of interest (I have no connection to the guy — I just found that one post informative).
That was fascinating article! Thanks for sharing it.
Ha! I started watching this a few weeks ago, but real life intruded. Glad to see I didn’t need to waste my time continuing with it.
T’was most unremarkable!
Well I’m glad that I had no interest in seeing this when it came out. I never would have guessed that it was supposed to be based off of Sense and Sensibility. It sounds horrid!
Your assessment of the film is most kind!
I wandered in to watch this at the JASNA general meeting this past October about 20 minutes after it started. Much to my dismay, poor Andrew Davies was sitting a couple of rows ahead of me watching this! He even sat through the whole thing. I suppose this was his penance for putting in that bit with Willoughby at the beginning of his recent S&S adaptation.
I can say one good thing about this movie. As bad as it was, it wasn’t nearly as dreadful as I imagined it was going to be!
“He even sat through the whole thing. I suppose this was his penance for putting in that bit with Willoughby at the beginning of his recent S&S adaptation.”
Hah! No doubt, but I cringe at the thought that he would think American Janeites would even deign to watch such a whatnot.
My mother and I were at the JANSA meeting this past October, too! We opted not to watch it, out of fear for how horrible it might be… Poor Mr. Davies!
Well, Vic, it wasn’t what I call “a film,” but I didn’t hate it as much as you did! I had to remove all thought of our dear Jane and her characters from my head and simply settle in for some mindless entertainment (I did find it mildly entertaining in spots).
PS And I must say, your scathing denunciation of it–er, I mean, review–is far more entertaining than the movie!
The dream machine is really running low on imagination.
Your review is spot on and is so much enjoyable than this cliched flop. I also watched it on Netlifx recently. Could have been fun but was so disappointing!
I appreciate your review and although you make some valid points, I don’t believe you are the target audience this movie was meant for. I usually don’t like cliched predicted dialog as this film had but I found the switching of the cultures quite entertaining. I can’t expect white women to have any inclination to seeing such a film, but as a Hispanic woman who loves Jane Austen, I definitely appreciated the attempt. The incorporation of Mexican culture was a nice twist the whole story and although I had to overlook the exaggerations and stereotypical roles in the film, I most definitely would not label it “horrid”. The message of the story is still similar and it was a very light-hearted fun film to watch.