When will male-dominant Latin cultures ever allow women’s liberation? In Woman on Top, director Fina Torres poses this question of Toninho Oliveira (played by Murilo Benício), the owner of a successful restaurant in Bahía, Brazil, who has relegated his wife Isabella (played by Penelope Cruz) to the kitchen as chef while he gets all the credit with his customers. Supplying voiceovers, particularly at the beginning of the film Cliff Lloyd (played by Mark Feuerstein) tells us that Isabella suffers from motion sickness. She gets ill from being a passenger of a vehicle, riding in an elevator, or even being on the bottom during sex. Although her husband Toninho reluctantly concedes to be her bottom, one day he sneaks next door to be on top of a neighbor women. Isabella’s discovery of his adultery is the last straw, so she flies to San Francisco to live with Monica (played by Harold Perrineau, Jr.), a male happily dressed as a female. Her search for employment as a chef proves fruitless until the head of culinary school suddenly has a vacancy. When she walks to school on her second day as teacher, a flock of men follow her, including Cliff, a television producers who later persuades his boss to have Isabella host a cooking program at 7:30 p.m. Isabella, in turn, insists that Monica must be a part of the show. Meanwhile, Toninho’s restaurant fails without her good cooking, and he misses her companionship, so in exasperation he throws something into the sea that stops the fish from being caught. He then flies to San Francisco to beg Isabella to return to Brazil. Searching in vain around town, he spots her on television in a bar, where the male customers primarily see her as a delicious dish while she prepares her tasty dishes. Sneaking onto the television station, Toninho and Brazilian musicians who have accompanied him from Brazil provide unexpected musical background for a program while he tries in the foreground to plead with her to return to Brazil. The television station executive insists, contrary to Isabella’s wishes, that he become a part of the show because the musical background adds to the show’s ratings. Adamantly refusing Toninho’s plea to go back to Brazil, Isabella asserts her independence by trying to seduce Cliff, who in turn demurs when he finds that she wants to be on top, though he offers the pretext that she is still being pursued by Toninho. Meanwhile, Monica is giving advice to both Toninho and Cliff on how to gain favor with Isabella. Toninho remains persistent, serenading Isabella Latin style below the balcony of the apartment that she shares with Monica. One day network executives decide to syndicate her cooking show nationally. When they insist that she must drop Monica from the show and abandon her colorful Brazilian wardrobe, she quits and is soon reunited with Toninho, but only after he agrees to all her demands—that she will do the driving, be on top in sex, and take the credit for the success of the restaurant. When they return to Bahía, the fish bit again, but Monica also comes along with her new boyfriend — Cliff. For many filmviewers, who will recall a similar plot in the Mexican film Like Water for Chocolate (1992), the best part of the film will be neither the comedy nor even the ease with which Brazilian blacks, Latins, and whites sleep with one another. Instead, the succession of romantic Brazilian love songs, which top even Black Orpheus (1959), provide melodies so haunting that the soundtrack is second to none for the year 2000. MH