Man do I love werewolves. But for as much as I love this particular movie monster, there is a real paucity of legitimately great films centering around the hairy troublemakers. Obviously we all love The Wolfman, and horror fans will debate The Howling vs. An American Werewolf in London until Judgement Day comes and trumpets sound, and probably even after that. And there have been some interesting stabs at in recent years, including Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers.
But there’s something about the werewolf that folks struggle with. Whereas vampires or zombies can be tailored and adapted to fit into pretty much any story or subgenre, the werewolf’s story is fairly rigid. Some dope gets bit, slowly starts to turn, full moon mayhem, lather rinse repeat.
(And that’s not even getting into the difficulties of actually depicting werewolves on screen. Plenty of otherwise solid films have completely tripped over their own feet when it comes time to unveil the monster, ranging from Silver Bullet to Late Phases. There’s a reason that 40 years on Rick Baker’s work on London is still the high water mark.)
Thank goodness then for Good Manners. Set in Sao Paulo, Brazil, this urban fairy tale breathes new life into an old monster. Deeply strange, profoundly moving, Good Manners is unafraid to color outside the lines, and unashamed of its giant, bleeding heart.
At the center of the film are two lonely women, one rich and one poor. The poor woman is Clara (Isabél Zuaa), a nurse desperately hustling to make her rent and keep a roof over her head. To accomplish this, she crosses the river into the wealthy section of town and interviews to be the live-in nanny for the rich, mysterious Ana (Marjorie Estiano). Ana, we learn, comes from an incredibly well-to-do family but has recently seen her entire world abandon her after she refused to terminate an unplanned pregnancy that resulted from a one-night affair.
Ana is looking for someone to assist her in the months leading up to her delivery, but really what she’s desperate for is someone, anyone, to care for and about her. To her own surprise, Clara finds herself connecting with and opening up to this woman who may as well occupy an entirely different planet than her own. It’s not long before the business arrangement between the two grows into something different, something real.
And it’s not long after that that the full moon shines on Sao Paulo, and Ana’s eyes glow yellow and she begins sleepwalking through the city in search of meat.
Good Manners is a patient film, well over two hours in length. Without spoiling anything (and you really should try to learn as little as possible about this film before seeing it), suffice to say that the film undergoes a fairly massive change at the one hour mark. Writer-directors Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra commit like crazy to their own premise, chasing it to extremes that chance at the edges of the both gross and ridiculous. There are bold choices here in terms of the narrative and imagery, but the absolute commitment of the filmmakers and their cast carry it off.
Even the musical numbers. And oh yes, there will be musical numbers.
Shot on location, Sao Paulo nonetheless takes on an heightened feel through the lens of Rojas and Dutra’s camera. Ana’s penthouse apartment may as well be Rapunzel’s tower, while the rain-slicked streets of Clara’s neighborhood become Gothic mazes of claustrophobic alleys and deep pools of shadow. While Good Manners is very much set within the real world, it’s a world where you can believe monsters roam the night.
About that monster: It’s well-executed. I don’t want to say too much more about it, since the nature and design of the werewolf is very much a reveal, but Rojas and Dutra are wisely judicious in how they parcel out their beast. When it arrives, I believe it’s an entirely digital creation, but it blends in well with the rest of the world, so you never feel like flesh-and-blood people are running in terror from a weightless cartoon.
But the movie’s best special effect is Zuaa, anchoring both halves of the film with her performance. Clara is a person who has chosen to close off some very crucial parts of her own nature, and Zuaa does beautiful, often non-verbal work in showing how that reserve begins to thaw the longer she stays with Ana. She strikes real sparks with Estiano, who is equally great in her depiction of this scared, lonely girl suddenly forced into the role of lone woman and mother. The bond between them is the anchor for the rest of the film, and if you don’t buy into it then none of the film’s twists or wild turns matter. But you do, and so they do.
Like Tigers Are Not Afraid or the films of Guillermo del Toro, it is that sincerity and unapologetic heart that enables the fantasy to truly take root. You care about these people, and you care deeply about what happens to them. Again and again, Rojas and Dutra gamble on the empathic connections between characters, and between characters and audience, to carry the film through the supernatural and grotesque, and again and again they come up winners.
The deliberate pacing of Good Manners may be a turn-off for some viewers, but the film more than earns that deliberation with its climatic payoffs. Rojas and Dutra have such command over their craft that I was willing to settle in, happy to let the winding arc of the film go where it went, certain that it would be worth the ride.
Yup.
Good Manners takes the familiar trappings of an age-old myth and spins something exciting, vital, and new out of the pieces. I’m not sure when or where you’ll have the chance to see it, but all genre fans should certainly make the effort.