I'm gonna tell the story without exaggerating anything...This movie was released and it took me a couple of weeks to go see it cause I wanted to see other things instead...Critics were not too kind but not too mean with this one, and being a Fito Paez film (who despites being a very pretentious musician could have a chance of being a good filmmaker), starring the always terrific Cecilia Roth and the hottest actor around, Gael García Bernal, I gave it a shot...<br /><br />I went to see it with a couple of friends...the theatre was with most of the seats empty but the audience that were there seemed to be "movie" people. Guys who are connected to the business in some way or the kind of persons you run into on the film festivals of the summer...so, this people went to see the movie with the best intentions...<br /><br />My cell phone rings, and a friend asks me where I am...I say in the movies, about to see Vidas Privadas...she inmediately tells me: "get out, that movie sucks. I've seen it...it sucks, believe me..." I trust on this women but it seems like is too much hate for a movie...and she goes on: "the movie is so bad you're gonna laugh, trust me...everyone is going to laugh"...so...I laughed...<br /><br />This movie tries, very unssucesfully, to be tragic. It's the story of an argentinian woman who lived the tortures of the dictatorship, she has spent the last years in spain but returns to her country to see her dad, who is about to die...the trauma of the tortures has left her unable to mantain sexual contact with anyone, and she satisfies her needs by watching others having sex or, as in the movie, hiring a young model to read her dirty novels while she masturbates...All this, believe me, it's ok...The story is not that bad until it transforms into a semi tragedy of edipian proportions, like out of a venezuelan soap opera...the directing touches of Paez don't help at all...we have horrible music (like from a hitchcock film, completely out of place), a ridicoulus atmosphere of mistrust and thriller that has nothing to do with the theme of this movie...and a bunch of supporting characters that in their attemps to portray a heartbreaking inner pain will make you laugh...<br /><br />The twist near the end is so unbelievable, (or at least so bad executed that you just don't believe it), that yes, the entire theatre started laughing and couldn't stop until the final credits rolled...It was painful...but I couldn't stop laughing either...<br /><br />It was painful because two terrific actors are wasted and worst, are being put on a ridicule position here...in a movie that has no direction at all, no believability and just nothing to offer...<br /><br />I used to hate the music from Fito Paez, but I beg to God that the guy stays on that s*** rather than go back and make another movie...latin american cinema is low on resources, they shouldn't be wasted on films like this.