Luminarias

Sitcom meets soap opera in this sometimes amateurish but spirited production. This low-budget Waiting to Exhale with Latina leads follows four female professionals as they grapple with stormy relationships. Unlike Exhale, the men here are not all social jerks and sexual opportunists, and the film pairs the fallout of marital infidelity with the interracial couplings of Restaurant and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. The title refers to the restaurant where the quartet’s conversation is lubricated with liquor, punctuated with profanity and free to roam wherever the moment takes it. Directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela and adapted by Evelina Fernandez from her play.