Some Brazilians can’t dance, a film review
Should Nothing Else Work Out
(Se nada mais der certo)
Directed by José Eduardo Belmonte.
Written by Belmonte, Luis Carlos Pacca.
With Cauã Reymond, Caroline Abras, João Miguel.
Brazil, 2009. 120 minutes.
Screening at the MOMA Premiere Brazil film festival.
Should Nothing Else Work Out is a languorous work about optimism in people who have every reason to give up hope. Set in São Paulo, the movie depicts the intertwining lives of three characters on the brink of penury. They each long for the warm embrace of middle class life as they plunge deeper and deeper into poverty. Leo is a handsome, poorly paid journalist who has recently lost his money in a tax scam. Marcin is a teenage happy-go-lucky coke dealer and huckster. And Wilson is a morose taxi driver who totes around the pistol with which his father committed suicide.
Their various get-rich-quick schemes haven’t worked out, nor does it appear they will anytime soon. Leo’s girlfriend is addicted to coke, Marcin’s hook-up thinks she’s too flashy to keep dealing, and Wilson is in danger of losing his taxi cab. Yet somehow they believe that things will get better.
