Lá Fora

It is a very feminine work. Not only because it has a truly dramatic heroine (Laura / Alexandra Lencastre), but also because it is a movie that shows men (or, at least, the main character, performed by Rogerio Samora) losing the strength and the will to connect with the complexity of the world around.

Perhaps the story and places are very Portuguese, but I felt it like truly universal — all of it could happen here, in Spain; in a certain sense, I think it is happening right now in the world of TV and everywhere where money is the main language of communication.

The shooting is always very beautiful (I don't know, but perhaps the cinematographer, Edmundo Diaz, is Spanish). The sound is also very subtle and truly important to define each scene.

I agree with a previous comment: the Gucci shoes shot is in bad taste, unless it was a hidden promotion of the mark; Sofia Bénard stepped into shoes larger than her capacity - she'll hardly become an actress, with this start; the film started as a good idea, but it never got a script to go with. Yet, the film has a few good marks going for it. It is a inner drama, and a social comment on isolation and egotism, and the closed sets (even a car in the woods is an extension of a person's cell, with a cellular phone), and the end shot is well prepared, slightly predictable but very beautiful. Not the best of Portuguese films, but not the worst, by a long shot. Foreign spectators will appreciate it more, possibly because it's social comment will be more heartfelt, directed at private, closed condominiums (recently introduced in that country), and more apt at finding the big budget movies that this one borrows from in aesthetic and ambience. The photography and the music serve the film well, and the sound recording and mix are more than OK (and that's usually a weak point in Portuguese films). The acting by Alexandra Lencastre and Ana Zanatti - in two opposite registers - is very good, and the scene in which tv reporter meets psychotherapist is excellent, with a perfect use of camera angles to serve the great beauty of Zanatti.

YES! This is most probably the worst portuguese movie ever! And I say "probably" because I haven't seen all the portuguese movies ever made. It is, for sure, the worst portuguese movie I have ever seen. I plea to everyone in the movie industry, in Portugal and beyond, to NEVER EVER hire Sofia Bénard for any movie, whatever length, aim or scope. SHE IS THE WORST ACTRESS TO HAVE EVER SET FOOT ON A PLATEAU! My God is she terrible. She's worse than terrible.

The only reason I can devise for anyone to buy a ticket to go see this movie is if you are planning to kill yourself in the first 5 minutes of the film. If you are not planning to do so and you still go watch this movie, believe me, you won't make it through the end, as the desire to kill yourself will be unavoidable.

Alexandra Lencastre, though, has a nice rack, but it still isn't worth it to go watch the movie. DON'T WATCH IT!

One more note for the script. The guy who wrote it is a film critic and not a screenplay writer (João Lopes), and one can obviously understand why. The script is so presumptuous that I almost puked. I specially felt agoniated by the totally needless "Gucci shoe" shot.

The worst thing of all, is that this heinous movie was subsidized by the portuguese State, which means that taxpayers' money went into this production. The government should fall for this alone.