Good Manners

Vampires and zombies have enjoyed renewed popularity in movies and TV in recent years, but werewolves have not been shown as much love. Brazilian writer-directors Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra aim to rectify that oversight—at least to some degree—with this intriguing if also overlong and artsy genre film. The first hour focuses on the relationship between Ana (Marjorie Estiano), a well-to-do pregnant woman living alone in a plush São Paulo apartment, and Clara (Isabél Zuaa), the impoverished job-seeker she takes on as a nanny/housekeeper. As the delivery date approaches, the pair grow close, and Ana confesses the strange circumstances of her pregnancy, which involved a priest and a wolf. At the film’s midpoint Ana gives birth to a grotesque infant in an exceptionally graphic scene. The second hour centers on Clara raising Ana’s boy Joel (Miguel Lobo) in the little flat that she rents from Dona Amélia (Cida Moreira); they seem happy, even though Clara restricts her surrogate son to a vegetarian diet and chains him up in a “little bedroom” during the full moon, carefully clipping the hair that grows on him during those intervals. Things go awry when Amélia, thinking Joel undernourished, feeds him a bit of meat, leading to his full transformation and some grisly acts of violence. Good Manners drags at some points, and the special effects are subpar by modern standards, but it earns kudos for presenting the story in serious terms, without resorting to tongue-in-cheek cuteness, and the performances are excellent. A strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)