I'm Still Here (2024) review

With a dictatorship rattling Brazil in the early 1970's, former congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), a devoted family man with four kids, is taken in for questioning by the military and then they detain his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and grill her about possible Communist connections - eventually she's released, fights to find out what happened to Rubens (he's never to be seen again) and decides to move from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo so she can become a lawyer.  It's based on the memoirs of Rubens' youngest son Marcelo (who was injured in a diving accident that it doesn't really go into) and one can sense the admiration he feels for his kin and their resilience, except once it moves past the harrowing prison scenes and it's clear Rubens is no longer alive and everyone mourns in private, the rest of it is devoid of any sort of tension: they put on a "brave face," refuse to frown for photographs and adopt the philosophy of "don't get mad, get even" (although Eunice's work as an activist isn't truly explored).  The appeal of this here in the United States is mostly from its timeliness, considering the current political upheaval by Emperor #47, his oligarchs and their complete disregard for laws, ethics, morality etc., but Salles has yet to prove he can create a fully-realized feature.