Raquel Pacheco was adopted by an upper middle class family in Sao Paulo. However, at 17 she broke away from this life to live in a brothel. She uses Bruna as her working name, and Surfistinha as her nickname. She does well for a while, but her relationship with the other women becomes turbulent. She moves to a new apartment setting with Gabi after meeting Carol at a dance club. She has even more success, starts a blog about her activities, which brings her even more business. She enjoys the spotlight for a while. Eventually she starts using drugs; unfortunately, the drug use and the fame hit about the same time. She crashes over this, and ends up chasing men in cars.
After recovering from the drugs, she writes a book about her experiences, and the book does fairly well. Her popularity in Brazil inspired the current movie, which is a dramatic representation shown on television of a section of her life.
Netflix showed this as 'Confessions of a Brazilian Call Girl.'
------Conclusions------
There is quite a lot of skin and simulated sexual activity shown in this film. TV14 seems a bit light of a rating; NC17 might be closer to accurate. So watch under advisement.
Bruna Surfistinha is a soft core * film that exploits Deborah Secca's physique more than anything else. The acting is better than that of American 'reality' television, but not by a whole lot.
As a dramatic treatment of a difficult life, the film seems too rosy, even though it depicts hard times that Raquel experienced.
One line summary: Rise, fall, and recovery of a Brazilian call girl and media star.
Three stars of five.
------Scores-------
Cinematography: 7/10 The film looks good for the most part, but it often shows TV/VHS quality rather than theatrical quality.
Sound: 6/10 was not that relevant to me. I do not understand Brazilian Portuguese, and the incidental music was not a factor. The subtitles seemed to be in reasonable parallel to the actors' intentions.
Acting: 5/10 OK, but not great, as noted above. Deborah Secco and Drica Moraes were the best.
Screenplay: 6/10 The film does tell a story, though it is more than a bit disjointed at times.
