Whilst there were many movie-goers that may have been surprised at hearing Fernanda Torres‘s name being called at this year’s Golden Globes as the recipient of the Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) over the likes of Nicole Kidman’s acclaimed turn in Babygirl and Angelina Jolie’s seeming front-runner presence in Maria, once I’m Still Here earns its witnesses – as it will in Australia this week – there’ll be less shock at her win, which has rightfully netted her a prime placement as one of this year’s Best Actress finalists at the Academy Awards.
There’s a proudness to how Torres carries herself in Walter Salles‘ engaging drama, even as the world of her character- Eunice Paiva – crumbles around her in the wake of 1970s Brazil and the military dictatorship it adheres to. A combination of both the actress’s intense commitment to Eunice’s plight and that Salles himself had a connection to the real woman she’s playing, the devastation of I’m Still Here rings true as it follows a woman whose congressman husband, Rubens, is taken away from under the guise of a “deposition” at the hands of a collective of armed, almost unassuming men, and never seen again.
The manner in which Rubens (Selton Mello) is removed from his home is at once forceful and unnervingly casual, and as much as Eunice demands to know where he is, she comes to terms with the inevitable and has to navigate a life as the sole matriarch of a family that doesn’t understand their condition. In the face of defiance against the regime, Eunice practices joy, but not in a manner that defiles her husband’s memory, but more so to express to her five children that their anguish is another charge on their freedom, and sitting in such helps none.
That being said, as much as the film sporadically bathes itself in the eye of childlike wonder through cinematographer Adrian Teijido‘s sun-kissed lens, not to mention its incredibly touching, poignant culmination which features Torres’s own mother, Fernanda Montenegro, as the older iteration of Eunice, Salles is not blind to the presence of evil that is this story. Whether it’s the torturous manner that Eunice is interrogated (“routine questions”, as it’s so put), the threatening appearances that loiter outside her residence, or the excruciating wait that is Rubens’s official death notice, I’m Still Here sits in a grounded, painful plane that further drives home the imitable spirit of Eunice, exacerbated by Torres’s stunning performance.
A beautifully realised film that isn’t marred by its real-life element – Salles keeps any of the historical notes for after the fact – I’m Still Here, on the eve of the Academy Awards, is arriving at the right moment for all to be enveloped by Torres’s stoic, yet warm performance of a woman maintaining her poise in the face of reinforced negations.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
I’m Still Here is now screening in Australian theatres.
