Las viudas de los jueves

Las viudas de los jueves (2009)

Director: Marcelo Piñeyro

Writers: Marcelo Piñeyro, Marcelo Figueras. Based on the novel Las viudas de los jueves (Thursday Night’s Widows) by Claudia Piñeiro.

Cast: Ernesto Alterio, Juan Diego Botto, Pablo Echarri, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Gloria Carrá, Ana Celentano, Gabriela Toscano  and Juana Viale

Synopsis: The film follows the rather unusual lives of four wealthy families living in Altos de la Cascada, a gated community on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. We witness how their lives are transformed from the economic boom of the early 1990’s to the country’s financial collapse in 2001.

Comments: Las viudas de los jueves was released in Spain on March 26, 2010. Begoña and I went to see this film last Thursday.  I feel very disappointed at the end. I have very much enjoyed the book on which the screenplay is based, but the film is boring and does not have any sense of rhythm. Actors’ performance was mediocre to say the best and most of them were not credible. In my opinion there are important elements in the novel that do not show up in the film while the script introduces other totally disposable elements.

My rating 3/10.

IMDb

Official Web

Thursday Night Widows by Claudia Piñeiro

>Original title: Las viudas de los jueves(2005)

Claudia Piñeiro

Alfaguara, 2007

256 p.

ISBN: 978-84-204-7171-6

I have read Thursday Night Widows as part of my contribution to Dorte’s 2010 Global Reading Challenge (Argentina). I have to thank Maxine for bringing this book to my attention on her excellent blog Petrona.

The action is set in a gated community called Altos de la Cascada, Cascade Heights, located some 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Buenos Aires. Argentineans called them “countries”. You can find more information about gated communities in Wikipedia.

The main characters of this book are four couples living in this “country”. The four men get together on Thursday nights to play cards, wives are excluded; hence the title. After one Thursday night on September 27, 2001 the corpses of three of them, Tano Scaglia, Martin Urovich and Gustavo Masotta, are founded dead at the bottom of the swimming pool. Only one, Ronie Guevara who left earlier remains alive. Back at home his wife Virginia feels that there is something wrong with the strange behavior of her husband.

After this strong opening the account of the facts that lead to the events narrated in the first chapter moves backwards. The story is told from different female perspectives, most often from Virginia Guevara point of view. Her job as a real state agent in that closed community allows her to keep track of the different families that move in an out that “country”.

This is an excellent book that reflects the rise and fall of wealthy families at the verge of the social-economic crisis that hit Argentina in 2001; a moral tale that has universal implications and can be particularly appropriate in times of deep economic crisis. It is very well written what makes it an enjoyable reading and I strongly recommended. Don’t miss it.

Claudia Piñeiro is a journalist, playwright and television scriptwriter who won in 1992 the prestigious Pléyade journalism award. She turned to fiction and her first novel Thursday Night Widowswon the Clarin Prize in 2005.

The film Las viudas de los jueves, based on this book will be released in Spain this coming Friday, March 26. For more information click here.

See also:

International Noir Fiction

Euro Crime

Crime Scraps

Petrona

Bitter Lemon Press

Próximas novedades

En España saldrán próximante a la venta:

La estrategia del agua de Lorenzo Silva
Cuestión de fe (A Question of Belief) de Donna Leon
El blanco movil (The Moving Target) de Ross Macdonald
Las viudas de los jueves ( Thursday Night Widows) de Claudia Piñeiro

Y entra las novedades de bolsillo se podrán encontrar:

No hay que morir dos veces de Francisco González Ledesma
Pasado perfecto (Havana Blue) de Leonardo Padura

>Claudia Piñeiro – Las viudas de los jueves

>Claudia Piñeiro (Buenos Aires, 1960) es escritora, guionista de televisión y colaboradora de distintos medios gráficos. Ha obtenido diversos premios nacionales e internacionales por su obra literaria, teatral y periodística.

El próximo 24 de febrero se publicará en España su novela Las viudas de los jueves Ed. Alfaguara, ganadora del Premio Clarín de Novela 2005. Será mi segunda lectura sudamericana con la que pienso participar en el 2010 Global Reading Challenge.

Sinopsis:
Detrás de las altas paredes perimetrales, más allá de los portones reforzados por barreras y flanqueados por garitas de vigilancia, se encuentra Altos de la Cascada. Afuera, la ruta, la barriada popular de Santa María de los Tigrecitos, la autopista, la ciudad, el resto del mundo.
En Altos de la Cascada viven familias que llevan un mismo estilo de vida y que quieren mantenerlo cueste lo que cueste. Allí, en el country, un grupo de amigos se reúne semanalmente lejos de las miradas de sus hijos, sus empleadas domésticas y sus esposas, quienes excluidas del encuentro varonil, se autodenominan, bromeando, «las viudas de los jueves».
Pero una noche la rutina se quiebra y ese hecho permite descubrir, en un país que se desmorona, el lado oscuro de una vida «perfecta».

Las viudas de los jueves ha sido llevada al cine en 2009 dirigida por Marcelo Piñeyro y está previsto su estreno en España el próximo 26 de marzo.

Publicada en inglés con el título de Thursday Night Widows, esta es la reseña de Glenn Harper en su blog International Noir Fiction.

Reseña en español en El placer de la lectura.