All Love Songs

Chico and Ana move into an apartment in São Paulo. Unpacking, Ana finds a cassette: a mixtape a woman named Clarisse made for her husband Daniel twenty years earlier. As the songs are played in order, two stories tie together, one in the past and one in the present, both in the same apartment. Joana Mariani hands the structure to the music: each track is a chapter and each chapter a moment in a relationship. The transitions between the two time frames are made by the songs themselves. Brazilian popular music forms the film's narrative skeleton, and Gilberto Gil appears in the cast. Marina Ruy Barbosa and Bruno Gagliasso star. Who it's for: Viewers who like romance built on music, Brazilian popular song, and two-timeline structures. Who it's not for: The plot is thin and the characters remain carriers for the music. The effect weakens without familiarity with the songs.