Land Of Women review: Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria’s in for a happy ending in this feelgood show, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS
Bonkbusters are out. Airport novels, spy thrillers, chick flicks and even cozy detective mysteries. . . don’t show yourself on the beach this year reading anything about it.
Feel-good is the new craze. Publishers can’t get enough of tear-jerking, emotional stories with a touch of romance and a happy ending, with titles such as The People On Platform 5 and A Wedding In Lake Como.
Television hasn’t kept up for a long time. Half of all dramas still seem to start with a woman in a nightgown fleeing through a forest at night to escape an unfaithful husband, a serial killer or a forest fire — the opposite of feel-good.
But Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria has the recipe to change that, with her Apple TV+ series Land Of Women. It is ruthlessly calculated to make us smile as we well up with a touch of melancholy, admiring the haute couture.
Eva Longoria’s Land of Women is ruthlessly calculated to make us laugh while welling up with a hint of melancholy
Eva’s wardrobe bears the brunt of many jokes. When she’s (pictured, center) not plunging into picturesque hillside pools in a tailored tweed suit, she’s getting splashed with mud in a white chiffon pantsuit
In fact, Eva’s wardrobe bears the brunt of many jokes. When she’s not plunging into picturesque hillside pools in a tailored tweed suit, she’s getting splashed with mud in a white chiffon pantsuit. And there is no end to running in four-inch heels, a trick she performs with the grace of a giraffe on stilettos.
She plays Gala, a tough but glamorous cookie from Manhattan whose husband goes on a nightly spree to stop the mafia debt collectors from hunting for $15 million and both of his kneecaps.
Instead of hanging out in New York to discuss repayment options, Gala also flees the country, taking her teenage daughter Kate (Victoria Bazua) and her slightly senile mother Julia (Carmen Maura)… plus a suitcase full of designer clothes and $50,000 stuck to her underwear.
They go to the Spanish village where Julia was born, which is now run by a women’s collective, which earns a living from the annual grape harvest. The local vino is best used to unclog the drain, but it happens that Gala is an internationally renowned wine expert, so you should be able to see that happy ending ferment nicely.
Before it arrives, there are many family secrets to discover. Julia was a popular girl in her youth, which sets up a Mamma Mia! storyline: which of the village elders is Gala’s long-lost daddy?
Eva Longoria, Victoria Bazúa and Carmen Maura in the Apple TV+ series Land of Women
Is it the police chief, now married to her aunt? Not the local priest, who blushes to the tips of his tonsure every time Julia smiles at him?
Stroppy Kate will also have to ‘find’ herself, probably with the help of the Gamine garage mechanic who covers the dashboard of her truck with pin-up girls.
Gala’s romantic future is already assured after she crashes her car into a farmer’s tractor. He seems to find it all bitterly funny. She claims to be indifferent to his “salted and peppery George Clooney beard,” so she’s already in love – she just doesn’t realize it yet.
Constantly switching between English, Spanish and Catalan, sometimes mid-sentence, is tiring and requires a lot of subtitles.
But don’t let that spoil things. What’s wrong with feeling good?