Yellow has a plot and some quirky characterization, but let's be honest,
they are just window dressing. The only reason it exists is to showcase the
talent and beauty of its producer/star Roselyn Sanchez. In that respect, it
succeeds. Sanchez is gorgeous. She has a beautiful Mediterranean-type face
(she's actually Puerto Rican), and a spectacular body with tightly muscled
legs, six pack abs, and killer naughty bits. She seems to have the talent as
well, but I'm not really qualified to evaluate her dancing. Like most of
you, I have several left feet, none of them coordinated, and I can't tell
the difference between dancers who are pretty good and those who are
brilliant. I can tell you that I enjoyed watching her move, and that she did
so gracefully through several different styles of dance ranging from ballet
to Broadway to striptease.
As for the movie, the less said about that, the better. The main
character is named Amaryllis, but they call her Yellow because it's a
bad Spanish pun. (The Spanish word for "yellow" is "amarillo.").
There's
just nothing that people enjoy more than corny puns in foreign languages. I
don't know about you, but I just can't get enough lame English puns, so I
seek them out in all the world's languages.
Yellow leaves her
frustrating life in Puerto Rico to pursue her dream of being a professional
dancer in The Big Apple. She gradually lowers her sights from dancing in
Broadway theaters to waitressing in 10th Avenue hash joints until she
finally does land a dancing gig - as a stripper. The film then wanders directly
into Almodovar territory with the overriding concept being the dignity and
goodness of man, even in the unlikeliest of places. Although Yellow is
surrounded by sleazy strip club owners, horny patrons, strippers,
transvestites, and crazies, they all turn out to be wise and compassionate.
The strip club owner treats her like a daughter. The sleazy #1 patron of the
strip club turns out to be a sensitive uptown doctor recovering from a bad
break-up. The crazy guy reconciles with his long-lost son. The other
strippers give Yellow a standing ovation when she shows off some classical
moves. And there's more where all that came from, but I'm sure you must
already have the idea.
Despite starting in New York with no money, no friends, and no place to
live, she soon finds friendship and true love and also gets her big break on
Broadway. The worst thing that happens to her is that she finally has to
choose between her doctor and her career!
That poor kid.
The 3.4 at IMDb is weak, but that score may actually be artificially high! The 3.4 is padded by a bunch of obviously
insincere 10s. The most common score is 2/10, and the film merits only a
bottom-feeding 2.0 from the top 1000 voters, a group essentially immune from
ballot-stuffing. I think your take-away should be that the film is not any
good.
Roselyn, however, is a total babe.
Yellow was intended to show off its star and producer, Roselyn Sanchez,
specifically her looks, dancing and acting ability. As for her looks,
Sanchez worked very hard toning up for the role, and that part worked. She
did look good, what we could see of her. But the way to show that would have
been tasteful nudity in good light. Both nude scenes are dark. Strike one.
None of the dancing scenes were long enough to judge her ability, and she
was shot from the waist up during many of them. Strike two. As for her
acting, she failed to show any dynamic range at all in what should have been
a very emotional role. Strike three.
The treatment (described above) is trite, but workable. So why didn't it
work? First of all, major plot points and entire sub-plots were removed from
the film, stranding some characters, and not explaining the actions of
others. Second, the cutting included way too many jump cuts, MTV style.
Third, the curve of excitement was missing, just as Sanchez' dynamic range
was absent. There was nothing wrong with the cinematography, but the editing
was abysmal.
