Warning: All cynics should avoid this movie like the plague!!! Full of contrivances and cliches, ridden with all the typical plot elements of any kind of ensemble romance piece, this film on the outset seems like nothing new. But there's just something about it I couldn't let go of-maybe it was the beautiful Rio de Janeiro backdrop that this film is set against. Maybe it's the opportunity to see Amy Irving once again in all her glory. I don't know which, but the lady should definitely be in more movies, especially in ones where her husband directs her and therefore gives her the best role and makes her the most sympathetic in the film. Irving stars as Mary Ann Simpson, an English teacher in Rio who teaches classes by night and private students by day. Across the hall from her classes is the shop of an elderly tailor, whose lawyer son Pedro Paulo (Antônio Fagundes) is helping his father get out of an alimony fix that involves a much younger wife. One night Pedro Paulo runs into our heroine on the elevator, and love at first sight is born. Right away he forgets about Tania, the ex-wife (Débora Bloch) he was having trouble letting go of, and goes after this mysterious new woman in his life. Along the sidelines there are plots that involve Irving's student Nadine (Drica Moraes) and her online romance with a SoHo artist `Gary', and another regarding the lawyer's intern Sharon (Giovana Antonelli) and her romance with both her boss' brother Roberto and the famous soccer player Acacio (Alexandre Borges), who also happens to be taking private English lessons from Mary Ann. All these lines cross and meet and even out in perfect form, and yet somehow at its most typical the film manages to be at its most enjoyable, possibly because Barreto has such a good time entertaining his audience that one can't help but dive right in. Worth a good look.
Review of Bossa Nova
