A woman married to a former politician during the 1971 military dictatorship in Brazil is forced to reinvent herself and chart a new course for her family after a violent and arbitrary act.
Whether Rubens was indeed the political agitator he's insinuated to be we never actually find out, his story isn't told. Instead we have to endure the story of his utterly impotent and complacent wife which, despite everything pointing towards the opposite, refuses to develop even a shred of political consciousness. The 1,5 stars are exclusively due to parts of the first half, which quite convincingly show how the state is willing to ruthlessly and terrifyingly exert the full potential of its force against its own people if it feels its dominant ideology threatened. What follows is a sob story of a upper middle class wife removing herself and her family from political turmoil through the means of their convenient economic status.
