Based on its fairly positive rating (7.1 at time of watching), I was expecting some original arthouse, or coming-of-age, or at least one of those sunny movies, buzzing in an uplifting dance of drama and passion that we all know Brazil for. As the movie proceeded, I observed the in itself interesting underpinning idea (rich girl from Ipanema falls in love with hotdog selling nêginho from the favela) was so disappointedly executed with uncharismatic acting, corny directing choices, and a hasty, unrealistic screenplay, that I could not connect at all emotionally with the characters in the movie and their one dimensional choices. I then decided to increase the watching speed (long live technology!) to see if things would pick up at any point but the only thing that happened was that the whole thing derailed just like a third-class soap opera but without the advertising - or it must have been for counter-intuitive family bonds, predictable drug lords, lack of loyalty and cheap, conditional love. Imploding into an absolutely unwatchable ending with people tumbilng down like the limp hotdogs our main guy sold at his stall... As a conclusion, the only thing I could do to make something useful out of this waste of time was to type this review for IMDB to warn anybody who appreciates movies and his own taste too much not to fall into the same trap as I did. One star still for the lovely overview shots of favela and beach, one star for the effort and one star for standing up for hotdog vendors.
