Good Manners

Lonely nurse Clara arrives at a luxury tower block in São Paolo to interview for a live-in nanny position with Ana, a wealthy and equally lonely mom-to-be. The difference in these women’s social classes and backgrounds is stark, yet Ana hires Clara despite a lack of experience and references. It’s not long before Clara becomes an essential part of Ana’s life, wearing the hats of housekeeper, handyperson, confidant, and eventually lover.

As her due date approaches, Ana displays an unusual tendency towards full-moon somnambulism and a concerning choice of midnight munchies. All comes to a head one fateful night; the best laid plans of women and werewolves often go awry.

Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra’s latest and greatest effortlessly blends myriad genres from body horror to social drama to musical and deftly navigates a world of duality: black and white, rich and poor, center and periphery, introvert and extrovert, repression and desire, humanity and animality. In fact, it is a film than never stops evolving and transforming; through these contrasts we see a brilliant critique of societal expectations.

Having good manners is to repress our idiosyncrasies and domesticate our natural instincts; in Rojas and Dutra’s gothic fairytale, the two leads essentially defy the society that formed them. Thank dog for that.