A Happy Family

Eva and Vicente live in a gated community. The house is large, the garden kept, there is security and the neighbours know one another. They have three children: twin girls and a newborn. One day an accusation appears: Eva is said to have harmed her children. There is evidence and those around her believe it at once. Eva denies it. Nobody listens. Everyone inside the community takes a side and she is left alone in her own house. Then what the real order behind the walls is becomes visible. José Eduardo Belmonte directs. Grazi Massafera plays Eva and Reynaldo Gianecchini plays Vicente; Luiza Antunes is in the cast. It is a Brazilian production. It was released on 4 April 2024 and runs one hour fifty seven minutes. The tension it builds is communal; the gated community is both the narrative's space and its mechanism. The matter it treats is the expectation placed on motherhood; the accusation is set on medical ground and the film uses that as contested territory. Grazi Massafera's performance carries the picture and the character is left for a long time neither in the right nor in the wrong. Its form is the thriller; the clues come late and the viewer holds the same information as the character. Its limit is structure; the explanation in the last section is long and lowers the tension. Another limit is the supporting characters; the residents stay functional and one dimensional. Who it is for: viewers who like Brazilian cinema and thrillers grounded in family. Who it is not for: the subject is uncomfortable, the pace uneven, and the ending strained.