Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
After leaving her daughter Jessica in a small town in Pernambuco to be raised by relatives, Val spends the next 13 years working as a nanny to Fabinho in São Paulo. She has financial stability but has to live with the guilt of having not raised Jessica herself. As Fabinho’s university entrance exams approach, Jessica reappears in her life and seems to want to give her mother a second chance. However, Jessica has not been raised to be a servant and her very existence will turn Val’s routine on its head. With precision and humour, the subtle and powerful forces that keep rigid class structures in place and how the youth may just be the ones to shake it all up.
The Second Mother is a sharply observed Brazilian drama that earns its strong reputation. The plot is tightly constructed around class dynamics, using Jessica's arrival as a catalyst to expose the invisible rules governing domestic space with precision and wit — genuinely well above average storytelling. Regina Casé's performance as Val is a career highlight, layered with warmth, complicity, and quiet tragedy; the acting across the board is well above average. Cinematography is competent and naturalistic but not particularly distinctive — it serves the story without calling attention to itself, landing above average but not exceptional. Novelty sits just above average: the class-critique angle is well-trodden in Latin American cinema and the film owes debts to predecessors, but Anna Muylaert's precise, humorous touch and the domestic setting give it a singular feel. The ending is satisfying and emotionally earned without being either neatly resolved or cheaply ambiguous — above average but not a landmark conclusion.