Torres stars as Eunice Paiva, mother to five kids and wife to Rubens (Selton Mello), a former congressman. Helicopters buzz over the beach and trucks of soldiers trundle by their home, but the Paiva family largely goes about their daily lives in Rio de Janeiro in 1971. The first act sets them up as a loving and close-knit group, bonded by moments of joy both everyday and more momentous. All that time spent establishing their rhythms and connections make it that much more harrowing when Rubens is taken by a group of men with no warning and little explanation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m Still Here<\/em> is a story about how people endure, first through larger cultural crises and then through personal ones. Eunice is clearly affected by the trauma she and her children experience, but she also refuses to let it break her. She responds to the men who invade her home with remarkable politesse, and she tries to remain strong for her daughters and son as weeks and months pass with no idea where Rubens is or if he is alive. That son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, wrote the memoir on which the film is based, and I\u2019m Still Here<\/em> retains an intensely personal feeling through its adaptation by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega. Its final act makes two jumps in time, and it loses a bit of momentum in the movement forward as it explores the enduring legacy of pain and what healing looks like after decades. Yet the strength of its first two-thirds help this remain a largely gripping film about memory and trauma. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For all its other merits, Torres is undeniably the drama\u2019s biggest asset. It isn\u2019t just the way she communicates how Eunice reacts in moments of both joy and duress; it\u2019s the performance within the performance. Whether Eunice is trying to appease governmental thugs or put on a brave face for her children\u2019s benefit, Torres ably captures the layers of what her character is feeling and how she tries to contain those emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most famous for making the critically lauded Central Station<\/em> and The Motorcycle Diaries <\/em>(and the less-liked On the Road<\/em> and Dark Water<\/em>), Salles takes the standard route with I\u2019m Still Here<\/em>. There\u2019s little that feels inventive in its construction. Yet this is a solidly made picture, full of well-crafted production design and performances, even beyond Torres\u2019s tour-de-force. With Adrian Teijido as DP, it moves between 35mm, 8mm home-video-style footage, and archival clips, but the latter appears rarely with the centering of the Paiva family\u2019s experience, rather than the country\u2019s history as a whole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet it\u2019s impossible to watch this without thinking of Brazil\u2019s recent past under Jair Bolsonaro or other nations whose democracy may be at risk. Despite the period detail, I\u2019m Still Here<\/em> isn\u2019t set that far in the past, and the nightmares lived by the Paiva family and countless others under oppressive regimes are always in danger of being repeated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “I’m Still Here” is in theaters in New York and Los Angeles starting Friday. It expands nationwide on February 14.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Im-still-here2-1024x576.jpg\")
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