Califórnia

We don't have enough coming of age foreign dramas that are actually good, but this one hits hard. Typical Brazilian story from the 1980s: weird teenage girl meets weird teenage boy, cool gay uncle with AIDS, patronising father, rich kids more atatched to the maid than to their own parents; all of it without overbearing clichés. Very well-written film.

This is an excellent Brazilian movie which deserves to be much more well-known. All the actors do a great job, but I need to highlight versatile actor Caio Blat's extraordinary performance as the uncle who lives in California and the great debut of young Clara Gallo. Watching rock star Paulo Miklos portraying a character who is exactly the opposite of him is also entertaining. Screenplay is very well developed and sensitive, exploring both family issues and the adolescent discoveries and concerns. One more trait makes this films very special: it dives deeply on the 80's. The story takes place in that decade and it is impressive how many references have been incorporated: it is like time traveling. California is a quite moving and carefully built film which I strongly recommend.