Ugly Me

A beautiful woman decides to find out what life is like for her less attractive sisters in this comedy from Chile. Amanda (Bárbara Mori) is a beautiful, intelligent, and talented woman who is trying to make a name for herself as an architect, but despite her seeming good fortune, she’s unhappy with her life. Her husband is chronically unfaithful, her boss is by turns a bully and a weakling, and she begins to wonder if men disrespect her because of her good looks. She puts her theory to the test when she leaves her husband and job behind and moves to a new town, where she takes the name Helene and disguises her face and figure with a padded suit, an ugly wig, dowdy makeup and crooked false teeth. Relying solely on her talent, Helene quickly gets a job at a small design firm whose boss Max (Jaime Azocar) is greatly impressed with her ideas for new buildings. One of Helene's new co-workers is Marcelo (Marcelo Mazarello), a shirt-chasing male chauvinist who initially pays no attention to the frumpy new employee. However, as they get to know one another, Marcelo finds he admires Helene's turn of mind and enjoys having a friendship with a woman for a change, though Amanda is appalled by his attitudes toward women -- so much that she hatches a plan to turn the tables on him by meeting him without her Helene disguise. Pretendiendo (aka Pretending) made its North American premiere at the 2006 Los Angeles Latino Film Festival.