Original caricature by Jeff York of Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro as Euince Paiva in I’M STILL HERE (copyright 2025)
I’m late to the dance on reviewing the Oscar-nominated I’M STILL HERE, but it’s easy to see why Brazil’s Best International Film nominee is also up for Best Picture. Its true story about a well-to-do Rio family suffering at the hands of the dictatorship that took over the Brazilian government in 1964 resonated resoundingly with Academy members, perhaps due to it practically being a warning shot of what could happen here in America. Additionally, the film’s Best Actress nomination for lead Fernanda Torres is not surprising either as she brilliantly captures all the shock, sense of betrayal, and newfound courage to stand up to the overreaching autocrats bearing down on her family. Movies are supposed to be relatable and indeed, this one is so much so it’s palpable.
I’m STILL HERE is a beautifully realized film, ambitious in its scope covering one family’s plight from the late 1970s to the early 2000s. The movie begins in 1970 as former Brazilian congressman Ruben Paiva (Selton Mello) returns home to Rio de Janeiro after six years of self-exile following the revocation of his tenure after a military coup d’etat toppled the democratic government in 1964. He now working as a contractor in the city and living in a beach house with his wife Eunice (Torres) and their five children. They swim, enjoy family meals together, live well enough to have a live-in caretaker, and even take in a stray dog. They’re lovely folks and life is pretty sweet despite the constant military presence in the streets and even flying overhead while locals swim in the ocean.
Ruben and his wife have a great relationship; they flirt, compete at Backgammon, party with friends, and have thoughtful, intellectual conversations, Eunice is strong, hardly a docile, privileged woman, but her character will be tested when shady men come calling one day to take her husband in for questioning. Ruben assumes all will be fine and that the danger is minimal, but when the thuggish perpetrators close the blinds and start moving from room to room to go through drawers and closets, Eunice realizes they’re in trouble. In fact, from here on out, Eunice will not genuinely have a restful moment for the rest of the story.
The core of the narrative concerns how the dignified but fierce Eunice juggles taking care of the family without her husband, enables the search for his whereabouts, and avoids any worse run-ins with the unforgiving government. Suffice it to say, the tentacles of the militaristic and overreaching dictatorship become a constant thorn in their side. From constant surveillance to bugged rooms to far worse, it’s all that Eunice can do to keep her family together and not be driven mad.
Oscars for acting usually go to the kind of acting that seems most apparent: playing a celebrity, affecting an accent, or physically transforming through makeup, weight gain or loss, etc. Torres’ nomination is an extraordinary one because she’s been recognized for a performance that is exceedingly subtle and nuanced from her body language to her vocal tones to the way she holds her gaze. The character of Eunice must not show her inner rage or terror to the authorities watching her or the family looking to her for love and guidance. Torres gives a masterclass in what can be done without running a gamut of emotions.
In one brilliant scene, Eunice returns home after being questioned by the military police and takes extra long in the shower as if to rub off not only the sweat and dirt but also the unsavoriness of the encounter with the ruthless men. Torres’s choices as an actor in how she scrubs her feet speak volumes. It’s that kind of fully realized, yet understated performance, that will impress you as much as the Academy.
The child actors who play her offspring give similarly vivid and specific performances, as do the adult actors who play them decades later. Director Walter Salles (CENTRAL STATION, CITY OF GOD) is simply marvelous in the direction of his cast as he is with every other element of the film. I’M STILL HERE is shot realistically, unfettered by fancy camerawork, showy editing, or overly dramatic scoring. If anything, Salles gives it a documentary feel, creating a sense of realism that increases its power. Its terse, economical script by Murilo Hauser, Heitor Lorega, based on the book by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, is just as realistically rendered.
In the third act which showcases Eunice in her 90s, the character is played by legendary Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro. She is also Torres’s mother and it adds a touch of theatrics but one that packs a punch for the ending. Montenegro, by the way, was nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars in 1998 for her performance in Salles’s film CENTRAL STATION.
I’M STILL HERE is getting a broad release because of its awards prowess so far. (Torres won the Golden Globe last month for Best Actress in a Dramatic Film as you may recall.) It’s a film well worth seeing in the theater before it arrives on VOD, not to mention a worthy blueprint of the courage we may all need to find sooner rather than later as our nation’s new administration leans into autocracy.
