I’m Still Here warmly embeds us in the vicarious, loving rhythms of a busy Brazilian family, circa 1970, then reveals how precarious such a life can be when your country is governed by a paranoid, vengeful, and oppressive regime. Based on the life of Eunice Pava, the film stars Fernanda Torres as a wife and mother in Rio de Janeiro who refines her purpose when her husband falls under the scrutiny of the military dictatorship. Suddenly their open home, just steps from the beach, becomes a bunker under emotional siege. Torres gives a performance that gains strength even as Eunice increasingly trembles; this is no stoic, generic portrait of resilience, but one that’s always counting the cost. Meanwhile, director Walter Salles (Behind the Sun, The Motorcycle Diaries, Dark Water) provides a wide-enough canvas that we come to know each of the children intimately. (In one scene, during a family visit to an ice cream shop after things have been upended, it’s not only the shot of Eunice sadly noticing an untroubled family across the way that’s heartbreaking, but also the shot of her daughter noticing her notice.) When I’m Still Here takes a late-film jump decades ahead, then another one to an even later point in Eunice’s life, it gathers an unusually mournful potency, especially for what is ostensibly a biopic. By its end, the movie not only considers what Pava accomplished in the name of justice—it also wonders if we’ll have the fortitude to honor it.
(1/26/2025)
