Highly Overrated But Still Good

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

I believe this movie attempts to reset Eça de Queiroz's 1874 short story of the same name in 2009 Lisbon.The movie came off as rather awkward and unbelievable. The elements are quite ludicrous: guy falls in love at first sight, uncle (most ridiculous of all characters) rejects the relationship for no reason at all, girl goes out with him behind her family's approval (even though she had no idea who she was going out with). You never connect with any of the characters. Anyways, the story goes on, too slowly, but no less strange.

Reading the other reviews helped me to put this film in context. If you watch the film cold you will be baffled and not sure how to react. You must understand that the film is humorous and a parody.The film is based on a nineteenth century short story (Eça de Queiroz). But it is a parody on nineteenth century story telling (and life). As such it is humorous and entertaining. A clerk Macário (Ricardo Trêpa) sees a girl Luisa (Catarina Wallerstein) out of his window... he must marry her (Yes this is funny in today's world). His boss also his uncle will not allow him to be married. The clerk goes off to find his fortune to support his love. He prevails but is swindled of his fortune. However, in the end his uncle forgives him and supports the marriage. As he is about to wed he discovers his wife is a thief. That ruins it for him! (Of course Wallerstein is drop dead gorgeous so that kind of moralistic ending is so unlikely--more humor).If you don't understand this as humor (parody a stuffy idiotic Victorian story in modern times) it may appear surrealistic or too arty. The film is beautifully shot --it was too close up--this has to do with the parody too (I am assuming).Watch it and then figure it out (like I did) that will give you the most mileage.

This partly fairytale-like, partly almost surrealist movie is a little gem about gain, loss and regain, about how far one comes in being honest. It is amazing in many respects, as usually with the films of Manoel De Oliveira, and absolutely unique. E.g., the communication between Macário and Luísa takes mostly place between windows. Windows as such are compromises, openings of a wall which separate the inside from the outside, in-between-land that belongs to nowhere. Then the story obviously sets in a noble and stylistically rigid society, possibly in the 19th century, in which the novel had been written. But suddenly you see a computer screen and people paying in Euro. While Ricardo Trêpa, nephew of the director, and Leonor Silveira belong to the director's film-family, Catarina Wallenstein (who has not much to say and nothing special to act) is a true surprise, doubtlessly one of the most beautiful women ever having appeared on the silver screen, yet completely unknown hitherto outside of Portugal.

I've given this film a respectful score, if only because it is like being privileged to visit a grande dame in her home, where everything is correct and so boring you want to tell it point by point to your friends, who you hope are aware that you are not boring yourself. And I'd like to suppose the film is similarly ironic about its bland characters (a lover in the Cape Verde Islands who writes out for his young woman their physical geography, as my encyclopedia would call it). Its argument may be about the boring eternity of the upper bourgeoisie even in our world where the same fine things are now paid for in euros. But the film may fall into its own trap, as with the titles that let a conductor go seat by seat in a first-class train car checking tickets while credits very slowly appear. Viewer, your attention might stray to what may be outside the windows, but notice the lady with the pearl necklace, for she will be the perfect audience for this touching story. The best hope for irony might be a poem or two of Pessoa's, even if recited by a distinguished actor in evening dress.