The Second Mother [Que Horas Ela Volta?] **** (2015, Regina Casé, Helena Albergaria, Michel Joelsas, Camila Márdila, Karine Teles, Lourenço Mutarelli) – Movie Review

Writer-director Anna Muylaert’s funny social drama is a joy throughout.

There’s graffiti on a wall just down the road form the cinema where I saw The Second Mother. It says something profoundly banal and banally profound: ‘The rich don’t care about the poor’.

In my fantasy, writer-director Anna Muylaert might have seen this before she made her stupendous Brazilian movie for that’s the sub-text of the film. Serious at heart though it made be, The Second Mother is funny, dramatic and a joy throughout.

Of course it helps that Regina Casé is magnificent as Val, a hard-working live-in housekeeper to a well-off Sao Paolo family. She is Mother Earth, Mother Courage. She’s a warm and tender caring second mother, or really actually first mother, to her employers’ teenage son Fabinho (Michel Joelsas), whom the real parents can’t get close to. It’s Val who has made Fabinho fab. Val is also a lot closer to him than her own daughter, of course, who has been brought up by her father for a decade. After all, she’s the one who’s brought up Fabinho.

But then Val’s long-estranged teenage daughter Jessica (Camila Márdila) suddenly appears to stay at the house for a few night while applying for uni and taking her college entrance exams. Jessica is a rather confident and pushy woman women, attracting the eye of the quiet, put-upon dad Carlos (Lourenço Mutarelli) and irritating the tough-seeming mother Bárbara(Karine Teles). This sets the cat among the pigeons, toppling the delicate balance of masters and servant, and wrecking the happy home. Epic battles of wills are joined, with formidable opponents. Who is going to win?

The film grips like a vice and the 112 minutes vanish. The characters and the film stay in your mind for days afterwards. Playing like quality soap opera, it is easily one of the year’s most memorable films. And Casé is a star.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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