Vitalina Varela

Name: Vitalina Varela
Genre: Drama
Released: February 21, 2020
Duration: 124 min
Rating: 86
Cast: Francisco Brito, Imídio Monteiro, Manuel Tavares Almeida, Marina Alves Domingues, Ventura

2020

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 21 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 8 Ratings

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6.6

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6.6	Your Score
6.6	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 8 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Grasshopper Film | Release Date: February 21, 2020 | NR

Starring: Francisco Brito, Imídio Monteiro, Manuel Tavares Almeida, Marina Alves Domingues, Ventura, Vitalina Varela

Summary: A Cape Verdean woman who has travelled to Lisbon to reunite with her husband, after two decades of separation, arrives mere days after his funeral. Alone in a strange forbidding land, she perseveres and begins to establish a new life.

Director: Pedro Costa

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: NR

Runtime: 124 min

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Metascore

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

100

Jake Cole

Sep 6, 2019

At last, Pedro Costa appears to be more interested in how people get on with life than how they keep the company of ghosts. Read full review

100

The Playlist Jonathan Christian

Feb 21, 2020

Aligning itself with the director’s prior works, Costa’s cinematic dissertation on the impermanence of life, love as a sacrificial commitment and the existence of God requires a refined attention span and a liberal tolerance for a slow-burning narrative flow, but viewers in search of a visually masterful and emotionally desolate arthouse feature could find Vitalina Varela to be one of the most thought-provoking international features to debut in quite some time. Read full review

100

Joe Morgenstern

Mar 26, 2020

It’s an emotional investment with rich returns. Pedro Costa’s hypnotic drama, shot superbly by Leonardo Simões, follows its heroine through a dark night of the soul into the light of a new life in a new land. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Monica Castillo

Feb 21, 2020

Should you surrender yourself to the film’s beautiful cinematography and whispered musings, you’ll find a breathtakingly gorgeous movie about love, death and immigration. Read full review

Alex Saveliev

Mar 31, 2020

A languorous and poetic study of faith, grief, love, death and regret, set against the disheveled, but gorgeously framed, backdrop of Lisbon’s ghetto. Read full review

Richard Brody

Feb 20, 2020

Spectacular images, ideas, emotions, and performances are embedded in the lugubrious pace and tone of Pedro Costa’s modernist fusion of classic melodrama and documentary. Read full review

Jay Weissberg

Jan 9, 2020

Costa’s elongation of time (made more acute since there’s rarely enough light coming from the screen to check your watch) combined with his habit of doling out a few narrative details without exploration, results in a film that distances spectators not already in his thrall. Read full review

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Mixed:

User Reviews

Brent_Marchant

Apr 27, 2020

Exquisite atmospheric cinematography and lighting aside, this otherwise excessively tedious exercise in pregnant pauses, long lingering shots of insignificance, pretentious monologues and voluminous footage of mundane activities that adds nothing to the narrative makes one glad for the fastExquisite atmospheric cinematography and lighting aside, this otherwise excessively tedious exercise in pregnant pauses, long lingering shots of insignificance, pretentious monologues and voluminous footage of mundane activities that adds nothing to the narrative makes one glad for the fast forward button. Fewer films have I seen that make the viewer long for the ending -- and, when it finally comes, it's largely unsatisfying, likely to evoke a huge "So what?" I fail to understand the critics' raves about this one, but, with such a dearth of new material out there at the moment, I imagine that almost anything will do to satisfy the appetites of the hungry.… Expand

2 of 3 users found this helpful21

QLA92

Dec 26, 2020

Vitalina Varela boasts gorgeous visuals, which is the only saving grace of this tedious, meandering "entertainment"

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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