Oscar hopeful I’m Still Here (2024) opens with where, when, who, and what’s it like. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 1970. Eunice Paiva, the wife of a retired left-wing senator is on a beach as armored personnel carriers drive down the street. There’s an atmosphere of fear under a military dictatorship. Paiva is portrayed by Brazilian film royal, Fernanda Torres (Basic Sanitation, the Movie; Playing) in one of the easiest Oscar nomination layups in the last few years. You can catch it for yourself starting this Friday, February 7th, 2025.
L-R: Selton Mello as Rubens and Fernanda Torres as Eunice in I’M STILL HERE. Photo Credit: Alile Onawale. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. © Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
Torres plays wife to Selton Mello (A Dog’s Will; Reflections of a Blender) as Rubens Paiva. He was a member of the Labour Party, was ousted in the recent military revolution, and has since returned from exile to work as a very successful architect. As actions escalate between the US-backed military government and Brazilian rebel groups, the couple decide that their oldest daughter Vera, played charmingly by Valentina Herszage (Kill Me Please; Raquel 1:1), should travel with friends to England to attend college. Shortly after they send her away, a group of men refusing to identify themselves appear at the door and whisk Mello away without a formal charge. He is placed in the passenger seat of his own car and Torres is forced to watch as her old life rides away. From here on out, fear and desperation are her companions as she attempts to secure the release of her husband and keep her younger children out of trouble.
“My husband is in danger”…”We’re all in danger.”
If you’ve never lived life in a culture of fear, whether at work or school, or in your community at large, the achievement of I’m Still Here director Walter Salles’s (Central Station; The Motorcycle Diaries) collaboration with Torres is capturing that surreal feeling. Science fiction, action, and superhero films often paint fascism or oppression as loud, clever, and garish moods coloring the world on a grand scale — the Empire’s stormtroopers stopping every vehicle in Mos Eisley, Hydra driving helicarriers in the sky, helicopters shooting at hackers on rooftops, and men with guns fighting giant conspiracies in the street. These tropes reflect the flash-points of real life fascism — the tear-gassing of peaceful protestors, concentration (or “processing”) camps full of othered-people, and Palestinian doctors placing themselves between tanks and their patients.
Fernanda Torres as Eunice in I’M STILL HERE. Photo Credit: Alile Onawale. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. © Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
But cultures of fear, the everyday fascism of a political regime, or even just the cruelty of a bad boss, feel different than that. It is hushed conversations with teachers behind closed doors, empty desks on Monday mornings with no explanation, and an exhausting loneliness derived from everyone pretending to be happy and loyal and trusting. These are the habits of living in fear, and there are moments of personal escalation that fill your stomach with a surreal weight — the plain truth being rewritten or denied in your very conversation with authority figures, speakers planted in large meetings, friends being escorted from buildings, and disappearances.
Fernanda Torres as Eunice in I’M STILL HERE. Photo Credit: Alile Onawale. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. © Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
What sells all of this is Torres’s astounding performance. You believe everything she says as she disappears into Eunice Paiva. This buy-in where you believe what she is saying is absolutely key to creating that surreal dissonance. As she is questioned over and over again by the police about her husband’s potentially subversive activities, she is so convincing that you can only conclude that the interrogator is also convinced, yet torments her anyway. It is an honest performance brimming with resolve, worry, and love. There are many scenes in film where one takes a shower to wash away suffering, but the one that appears in I’m Still Here, with the middle-daughter Eliana (Luisa Kozovski (Birthright; Sick Sick Sick)) peeping one eye through the bathroom door like she’s seeing a ghost, has stuck with me. The twin tragedies of lost time and lost lives are balanced beautifully there.
Paiva family 2014 in I’M STILL HERE. Photo Credit: Adrian Teijido. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. © Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
It is remarkable how the relevancy of this film and this cinematic persona have grown in the past few weeks, and I am moved to bring up one last character who current events fixes in my mind: Rio de Janeiro. Salle’s vision of the city is alive with joy and life, trying its best to talk over the interruptions of the army. It’s just so green and bright, the tragedy of that darkness is almost overwhelming. This is the story of the tragedy of Eunice Paiva, activist and voice, and of Rio de Janeiro, home. These days, it is cathartic and inspiring. A left-wing organizer I know is one of the only white regulars at a mostly immigrant restaurant. A few weeks back, it was empty, save for a child picking up for a frightened parent. I watch I’m Still Here, and I weep for what is coming to our cities. I watch I’m Still Here, and I am encouraged that heroes do exist, and that control can never grip so tight as it imagines. With the bitter taste of cynicism oozing out my pen, I like the film’s Oscar chances more and more. See the film this week. You won’t regret it.
In select North Carolina theaters February 7th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Sony Pictures Classics I’m Still Here webpage.
Final Score: 5 out of 5.
Share this:
Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
Leave a Reply