In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Look, I know what you're thinking when you read the review's headline. How dare the author of this review think that gentrification isn't an issue. It is. Trust me, it is. But, the gentrification subplot in Vida's first season was not executed the way, the writers originally envisioned it. That's what I'm saying. A good subplot could have made this show something more than just two estranged sisters reuniting after the death of their mother. But, the gentrification storyline didn't sell it, at least for me. I should commend the show's extensive Hispanic casting. The Latino actors on this show are amazing. Their storylines (especially Emma, Lyn and Eddy) is pretty good. But, the show tends to give the gentrification storyline more importance in the first season and I wish there could have been stronger performances and writing in those scenes. I totally look forward to Season 2.

I was hooked within five minutes of watching, and it gets better with each episode. An inside look into Mexican-American neighborhood and it could be anywhere. From LA to The Mission in San Francisco to South Tucson and beyond. I can't wait for more!!!

The show greatly focuses on four central female characters with very different backgrounds. Marisol is a native daughter who is deeply rooted in her culture and her neighborhood pride. She is all about her family, and right and wrong is as clear as black and white to her. Emma and Lyn are sisters who both really tired to reimagine their lives after leaving the neighborhood. Emma looks like she got her things together and left without the intention of looking back. She obviously has some real issues with her mother, foreshadowing makes me think it has to do with Emma's own sexuality. As Emma calls her mother a "hypocrite" when she discovers her mother had been married to a woman. This brings us to Eddy the wife, she's totally heart broken about her wife's passing. You can see that she's from the neighborhood and was content to live,work and stay in her community. She doesn't want beyond what she has. Lyn is possibly the most complicated. She doesn't know who she is yet, she's young and selfish and has no capacity to understand how young and selfish she really is. This character is going to have a lot of personal growth once she stops being a crappy self centered asshole.All in all I'm enjoying the series I think it has a lot of potential. It's tackling topics like gentrification, sexuality, and how the Latino community comes together and falls apart.

So I totally don't get the bad reviews at all. It's a drama that explores human nature, identity, and culture. Not a mindbending plot, but fresh perspectives that are timely and very much needed to demonstrate the range of American life today.This show moves us well past Ugly Betty's America Ferrera and a second generation Latina making it in the world of NYC's fashion journalism scene. This also moves us past Modern Family's Sofia Vergara and the quintessential American blended family...On the one hand, this show fully explores intersectionality. Every protagonist is a female, and a second and third generation Latina in Los Angeles. The show also engages with class, immigration woes, and gentrification by female protagonists in a way I haven't seen before. The show also explores sexuality from the female gaze. The characters shatter the stereotypes about what it means to be Latino/a in the US today. On the one hand, this is totally an anti-Girls/post-SATC show. And at the same time, this is exactly the sort of thing that demonstrates the multitude of structural realities present in American life that Ta-Nehisi Coates critiques in "Between the World and Me". Identity is complicated, and reconciling multiple cultural pasts and presents is an ongoing process! The women of Vida are bad ass and finding their own way.