PRINCESAS — ** — Candela Pena, Micaela Nevarez; in Spanish, with English subtitles; not rated probable R (profanity, sex, vulgarity, violence).
A maudlin melodrama about prostitutes in Madrid, "Princesas" is not, alas, the new film by Pedro Almodovar but a dilution of his manner by the writer-director Fernando Leon de Aranoa.
The princesses of the title — and what a facile conceit that is — are Caye (Candela Pena), a mousy Spaniard saving up for breast implants, and Zulema (Micaela Nevarez), a foxy Dominican saving money to send back home. They will bond and squabble over the course of the film, in which narrative drive is replaced by an episodic drip of breakdowns, soul searching, girly behavior (shopping, gossip, hairdressing) and improbable poetic monologues.
Aranoa is good with actors but lousy with ideas, though he broaches themes of class conflict and the economic basis of racism. His best material observes the rivalry between a clique of native working girls and the dark-skinned streetwalkers newly arrived on the scene. Otherwise, "Princesas" rehearses "hooker with a heart of gold" tropes and indulges Almodovarian cliches of Spanish spunk and solidarity.
Irrelevant subplots burden the leads. Pena is saddled with a brittle, lonely mother. Nevarez fends off an abusive client. Both try hard to energize the material, but there's only so much to be done under the guidance of a director whose imaginative limitations are suggested by his conception, offered in the press kit, of the Zulema character: "a princess in exile, sweet and swarthy, doomed daily by desperation to eat the bitter bread of banishment."
"Princesas" is not rated but would probably receive an R for strong sexual material, including language (profanity) as well as some sexual violence. Running time: 109 minutes.