I'm Still Here (2024): A Review

 I'M STILL HERE

History is filled with great figures, but there is room enough for those small individuals who accomplished great things despite the obstacles against them. I'm Still Here is a deeply moving powerful film about courage.

Brazil, 1970. The nation is under a military dictatorship, but the wealthy Paiva lives with little to no concern for themselves. Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), a former Congressman, is not worried despite his work for those opposing the current dictatorship. His wife, Eunice (Fernanda Torres) is oblivious to her husband's work, which Rubens works hard to keep hidden.

However, the Paiva family is rocked when Rubens is taken into custody. Eunice, already having the indignity of having armed men stay in her home against her wishes, is now astonished to be taken into custody herself along with her second-eldest daughter Eliana (Luisa Kovoski), her oldest daughter Veroca (Valentina Herszage) having gone to London for school and a de facto exile.

Twelve days of psychological torture for Eunice, who is stubbornly refused information about Rubens or Eliana. She is eventually released without any information on Rubens and finding Eliana alive and safe back home. Eunice continues to push for information about Rubens, all while attempting to keep her children as unaware as possible and keep body and soul together. She gets information that Rubens is dead, but nothing concrete. Eunice will not be deterred, though she has her struggles with trying to raise her children. Eventually, even with government spies openly observing her home, she decides to move to Sao Paola with them.

Twenty-five years later in 1996, Brazil is no longer under a dictatorship and Eunice now has a death certificate for Rubens. She continues her efforts for the indigenous community, having become an attorney at age 48. In 2014, the extended Paiva family gather together and even with Eunice (Fernanda Montenegro) now debilitated from Alzheimer's disease, a television report on those who disappeared, including Rubens, triggers a moment of recognition. 

I'm Still Here expertly balances the transition from frivolity to fear in the Paiva family and by extension in Brazil. We see this early on when Veroca and her friends are happily driving down Rio de Janeiro, filming themselves and singing along to a pop song. During the drive though, they and all the other drivers encounter a military checkpoint, where they are pulled out and mocked by the soldiers as hippies. The mix of fear and irritation at the military's action are just a taste of what the Paivas have to endure.

We spend a great deal of time early in I'm Still Here with the Paivas at play. We get to know them as they mingle with each other and their circle of friends. They are jolly, lively and loving. This allows us to recognize how this one act of Rubens Paiva's forced arrest begins a shattering process. That alone makes I'm Still Here a sometimes-hard watch. It is the arrest and torture of Eunice that is almost too shocking to bear.

Director Walter Salles builds up the tension by what is not shown. The film uses great sound effects to make Eunice's imprisonment all the more harrowing. We hear the screams and torture from other prisoners while not losing focus on Eunice herself. Here, we see this tense set of days where, apart from a somewhat sympathetic guard who tells her that he finds this not to his liking, the patterns of forced interrogations and demands to repeat her full name all the more gripping, terrifying and sad.

In the entire film, it is Fernanda Torres' performance that holds the viewer. It is an exceptional one, for we see Eunice as someone who puts her family first. Her efforts to keep the children as unaware as possible, her quiet efforts to find both her husband and/or his fate and manner to keep the family going reveal a woman of strong character. For the most part, Torres' Eunice does not rage or become hysterical. 

Torres remains a firm manner in I'm Still Here. She is not stiff or stoic or making efforts to show outward courage. Rather, her Eunice reveals her strength whenever she smiles or attempts to keep calm through very tense circumstances. You see in Torres' face that mix of worry and resoluteness, a woman attempting to keep things together while holding in her rage and fear. 

It is neither a quiet nor loud performance, though it is closer to the former. In the few times where Eunice has a stronger, more intense reaction, Torres resists any efforts to make it a big moment. Whether it is when she slaps her daughter for pushing her to tell more than she wants to or berating the government spies who watched the family dog get run down, Torres is in full command. We even get a nice touch when Torres' real-life mother, Fernanda Montenegro, makes a brief appearance as the older Eunice. Even if this brief moment, we see Montenegro's skills when she communicates by just her eyes.

The film is well-acted by the entire cast. It manages to move mostly well and fast despite its runtime of slightly over two hours. Perhaps the extended scenes of the happiness of the Paiva family could have been trimmed. However, that is a minor detail. 

I'm Still Here holds the audience's attention and never releases it. Eunice Paiva is a woman who had fear but who was not afraid. The acceptance of things as they are, as brutal as the truth is, is hard. I'm Still Here works to show that strength comes in many forms.

1929-2018

DECISION: A+