Com Licença, Eu Vou à Luta

A film worth seeing, for many reasons. It is an excellent working class drama, showing a side of Brazil not always shown. And it features outstanding performers by now veteran actresses Marieta Severo (CARLOTA JOAQUINA, PRINCESS OF BRAZIL), and the Cannes Best Actress-Award winning Fernanda Torres, daughter of the now famous Montenegro (CENTRAL STATION). The soundtrack boasts some of Brazil's best pop music of the 80's also. A good choice.

In Baixada Fluminense, a proletarian and large area in the State of Rio de Janeiro, the fifteen years old Eliane (Fernanda Torres) lives with her neurotic and frustrated mother Eunice (Marieta Severo), and her sick father Milton (Reginaldo Farias), an earlier retired sergeant of the army and they do not have a good relationship at home. When Eliane meets Otávio (Carlos Augusto Strazzer), a divorced man eighteen years old older than Eliane, and they fall in love for each other, her family presses Eliane in such an unbearable situation that she runaway from home to another city. "Com Licença, Eu Vou à Luta" is an outstanding drama of a low middle-class family, based on the biography of Eliane Maciel. The story is based on the conflicts between the frustrations of a mother and the sentimental life of her young daughter, and is very engaging. Although being a low-budget movie, the story is real and very updated and the performances of the cast are excellent, highlighting Fernanda Torres and Marieta Severo. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Com Licença, Eu Vou à Luta" (it is a idiomatic expression in Portuguese, meaning: "Excuse-me, I am Leaving")