I’m Still Here – Review

Release Date – 21st February 2025, Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 18 minutes, Director – Walter Salles

Rio, 1971, mother Eunice (Fernanda Torres) finds herself trying to hold her family together whilst uncertain as to if her husband (Selton Mello) is still alive after being taken in for questioning by the dictatorship-run army.

I’m Still Here finds itself amongst a growing number of titles, largely international films, which show the Academy Awards votership responding to word-of-mouth successes. Much like Drive My Car a few years ago, with its success at various critics bodies, the Portuguese-language drama picked up nods and wins at the typically celeb-filled Golden Globes and began to enter the wider awards conversation. Leading it to Leading Actress and Best Picture nominations in addition to growing speed in the International Feature race, against holding frontrunner Emilia Perez.

Having gone in to director Walter Salles’ latest film knowing of the awards success and very little else the gradual build-up constructs a slice-of-life drama. We see housewife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) enjoying life, spending days on the beach with her children, while her former congressman husband, Rubens (Selton Mello), appears to work on building homes nearby with friends. Despite the occasional signs of the military driving down the nearby roads serving as reminders of the military dictatorship, the sun is shining and life appears to be idyllic. Occasionally mysterious phone calls or knocks at the door are responded to in secret by Rubens but this appears to be a part of everyday life, especially after six years away from civil life.

However, when agents with links to the army arrive one day to take members of the family into questioning, Eunice and her daughter (Luisza Kosovski) are returned home after an uncertain amount of time away in dark and dirty cells, however Rubens doesn’t return. The longer he’s away, the more worry begins to fill Eunice. Friends help her search for his possible whereabouts, however no information is provided by the government or the army, proof is needed that something happened to him for them to admit anything. Is he dead? If not then where is he? Once things kick off with the tension and darkness, and yet to start with lightly, uncertainly amusing – the agents lingering in the home playing table football with the kids raises a chuckle before cutting straight back to the threat at hand – at play I’m Still Here properly starts to take form.

A slow-burn drama, there’s a good deal to engage as the details of the lack of details grows. Character drama, as Eunice tries to keep her family in order and avoid admitting her worries of her husband’s likely death, plays out alongside the political fears and impacts that construct much of the film’s basis – based on real-life Eunice’s son Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir of the same name (Ainda Estou Aqui in the original Portuguese).

Once things get into gear there’s a direct and well-pieced-together drama at hand. One that’s engaging and manages to move the run-time along with an effective pacing which leans into the confusion at the heart of each character and the family dynamic. This is a film where much of what we see, and understand, is hidden behind slipping veils. The fear and uncertainty, and the worry of the further effects that this might have especially considering the government response or any escalation. All comes to the fore in a subtle and finely-tuned performance from Torres in the leading role, having become a quietly strong contender throughout awards season.

There may be some slight uncertainty when it comes to how to close the film, or at least where things should be closed off in a segmented epilogue of sorts, but there are still interesting points to be raised – particularly regarding the responses and feelings of the children who may have lost their father. It does reflect the slower nature of the opening, but for much of the film there’s a focused and effective political drama that manages to stir the emotion, worry and tension in the characters and in some way on the audience, largely thanks to the way that it grows its events and creates understanding in the difficult, almost impossible, search for answers.

The opening and closing stages might feel somewhat gradual, but the bulk of I’m Still Here is a well-tuned and understood political drama which successfully leans into hidden emotions and details which stir the fear and worry at hand, much of which is caught in Fernanda Torres’ central performance.