‘I’m Still Here’ review: Brilliant political biopic honors family resilience under dictatorship

This year’s Golden Globes nominees for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama) included four Oscar winners in Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Tilda Swinton and Kate Winslet, a stunning comeback story in Pamela Anderson – and the acclaimed and brilliant Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres. When Torres’ work in “I’m Still Here” was announced as the winner, it might have come as a surprise to audiences more familiar with the other names on the list, but I won’t call it an upset since this is one of the best performances of the decade so far in one of the best movies of the decade so far.

To invoke the cliché, you owe it to yourself to experience this film. With the singularly talented director Walter Salles (“Central Station,” “The Motorcycle Diaries,” “Dark Water”) at the helm and a remarkably vivid and natural cast led by Torres, “I’m Still Here” is a major political biopic that gives just because of a dissident who surrendered his life in opposition to the military dictatorship in Brazil, but is primarily focused on the wife, mother and activist who has to keep her family together.

Based on a true story, this is a tribute to the strength of a matriarch who has no time to mourn or feel sorry for herself. She has children to love and protect.

“I’m Still Here” is filmed in delicate, period tones of the early 1970s, with the occasional moment shot through the vantage point of a hand-held Super 8 home movie camera, like an extended memory, as if we’re seeing everything through the memories of someone looking back on the most defining period of their life.

It’s Christmas time in Rio de Janeiro, where ex-congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello, fantastic) has returned to his family after six years in self-exile after he was ousted from the government during the revolution. Rubens and his wife Eunice (Torres) live with their five children—four girls and one boy—in a happy, busy, upper-middle-class home just across the street from Leblon Beach. It’s the kind of house where music plays, books and art are everywhere, guests stop by regularly, and Eunice’s famous soufflé never disappoints.

The early sequences are almost painfully idyllic as we see Eunice floating on her back in the water, girls dabbing Coca-Cola on their skin like a tanning lotion while gossiping, a lively game of volleyball and the youngest Paiva child, Marcelo ( Guilherme Silveira ), scoops up a stray dog ​​and runs home to announce that he is adopting it. (The film is based on Marcelo’s book of the same name, with Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorena providing a commendable film adaptation.)

It all seems so lovely, but there are signs of military dictatorship all around. Helicopters in the sky, army convoys rumbling down the streets, reporting the news of the Swiss ambassador’s kidnapping. When daughter Vera (Valentina Herszage) and her friends return home from a movie, they are detained and searched by authorities shining flashlights in their eyes and looking for dissidents. Rubens regularly meets with colleagues behind closed doors, with envelopes regularly exchanged. It is clear that he is involved in resistance activities, although Eunice never asks questions.

One evening, serious men come knocking on the door and demand that Rubens come in for questioning. Eunice and her daughter Eliana (Luiza Kosovski) are eventually brought in as well, with Eliana released after a day, while Eunice endures nearly two weeks of brutal conditions and harsh interrogations in a dark and cramped prison cell before being released and returning home. the children, that their father will also return soon – even though she already knows that Rubens will almost certainly never come home.

Fernanda Torres carries the film with an astonishingly resonant performance that conveys a world of emotion without ever delving into theatrical history. Eunice has a unique relationship with each of her five children, nurturing their individual personalities and strengths and vulnerabilities with a mother’s unwavering love and understanding. As the years pass, Eunice returns to law school and becomes an advocate for human rights, crusades for justice and campaigns for the recognition of missing persons such as her husband.

We jump forward to scenes from 1996 and then 2014, with Torres’ mother, the great Fernanda Montenegro, playing the older Eunice in the final sequences, and a host of wonderful actors taking on the roles of the grown children. We can see how the now expanded unit, which includes spouses and partners, children and cousins, is filled with life and love.

The disappearance and death of Rubens Paiva was an unimaginable loss for this family, but they flourished through the generations, in large part because Eunice wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’m Still Here” is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen about the power of family.