I’m Still Here review: ‘it feels timely’

As the world seems to be barrelling towards strong-man regimes Brazilian director Walter Salles serves up a timely reminder of how they rip families apart.

Set in 1970 Rio during Brazil’s dictatorship this gripping film focuses on the Paiva family. Former senator Rubens (Selton Mello) and his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) have no fewer than four daughters and a son.

Theirs is a world where barefooted football is played on the streets and the nearby beach which is overlooked by Sugarloaf Mountain. Meanwhile, radio waves fill the sunlit air with samba rhythms. Yet this distinctly Brazilian brand of joie de vivre is punctuated by news bulletins about foreign ambassadors who are kidnapped by members of the armed opposition.

Theirs is a world where barefooted football is played on the streets and the nearby beach which is overlooked by Sugarloaf Mountain

It all seems uncomfortable yet distant enough from the Paivas to continue their idyllic life – until armed, deadpan men in shirts knock on the door and Rubens is taken away. Two days later Eunice and one of her daughters are also taken. They are hooded and driven at breakneck speed to the army interrogation centre where instead of samba the air is filled with the cries and screams of the tortured.

The mother and daughter’s eventual release is only the beginning of the campaign to have Rubens released, an impossible goal as the government do not even admit to his arrest.

Fernanda Torres as Eunice[Missing Credit]

Torres delivers a masterly performance that conveys the anger, dignity, fear and grit of the real-life matriarch whose story Salles’s film tells. She fully deserves the Best Actress Oscar nomination for which she is up against the equally superbMikey Madison for her BAFTA-winning turn in Anora.

For my money Torres is Madison’s only competition for the Academy Award.The first and last time the Best Actress Oscar was tied was in 1969 when a well-established Katharine Hepburn and fast-rising Jewish talent Barbra Streisand shared it  for the films The Lion in Winter and Funny Girl. Perhaps it’s time to revisit that precedent.

I’m Still Here

Classification: 15

★★★★★