I'm Still Here

After a decade away from directing features, Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles returns in a mode loosely similar to his most widely celebrated work, the Che Guevara road movie The Motorcycle Diaries. This new film is similarly concerned with someone who's been in something of a protective bubble and is now coming to terms with grim political realities. But in I'm Still Here, the real-life figure's path to activism and personal reinvention comes from the scary reality turning up at her front door.

In early 1971, against the backdrop of a tightening military regime, a raid by unidentified officials occurs at an idyllic house in Rio de Janeiro, where former congressman Rubens Paiva (Mello) lives with his wife Eunice (Torres) and their five children. Rubens is taken away while his family are kept at home overnight. Eunice's inquiries on Rubens' location and safety soon lead to her own arrest and torture for 12 days. From there, she pursues answers as best she can, as everyone around her processes the pervading risk that speaking up will only lead to a fatal form of silencing – one that seems all too likely to be the explanation for Rubens' fate.

Following a playful opening stretch before the inciting incident, Salles' film unfolds in a relatively unostentatious style and at an unhurried pace, which is of great benefit to Torres's intricate central performance. The film around her loses some momentum from the stateliness, though, even if the eventual dual codas achieve much of their intended emotional punch.

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Released 21 Feb by Altitude; certificate 15