The Sec­ond Mother

Anna Muy­laert takes a clever and con­sid­ered approach to social class in this sharply observed com­e­dy of man­ners. Val (Regi­na Casé) has been the house­keep­er for a wealthy fam­i­ly in Sao Paulo for as long as her teenage daugh­ter Jes­si­ca (Cami­la Márdila) has been alive, but her deci­sion to work in the city as a means of sup­port has been a bar­ri­er towards their devel­op­ing relationship.

When Jes­si­ca organ­is­es a stay at the home of Val’s employ­ers, she ques­tions the way in which the fam­i­ly treat both her and her moth­er. Muy­laert traces the pas­sive aggres­sive lines of oppres­sion between the two clans with winc­ing con­vic­tion. On meet­ing Jes­si­ca, wealthy matri­arch Bar­bara inward­ly scoffs at her ambi­tion to become an archi­tect. The film also touch­es upon elit­ist, chau­vin­is­tic behav­iour through hus­band Car­los (Lourenço Mutarel­li) who, rather than respect Jes­si­ca decides he would like to own her.

Muy­laert cuts through hyp­o­crit­i­cal bull­shit with sting­ing hon­esty but man­ages to keep the warmth of human­i­ty alive through the cen­tral rela­tion­ship. Val attempts to rec­on­cile rela­tions in the house, but a dor­mant rebel­lious spir­it begins to emerge. Her arc deliv­ers a small vic­to­ry that ends with a spine-tin­gling splash of mis­chief. Casé’s endear­ing screen pres­ence makes the back and forth with her daugh­ter both com­pelling and mov­ing, and it warms the heart to observe their frag­ile bond strengthening.

Val’s altru­is­tic streak is both her down­fall and sav­iour, but she nev­er alters her per­son­al­i­ty, she just pos­sess­es the capac­i­ty to take on new things and roll with the punch­es. The unspo­ken divide between class­es is clear­ly defined by Muy­laert who moves her char­ac­ters between claus­tro­pho­bic dwellings and grand­ly designed buildings.

The Sec­ond Moth­er strikes a pas­sion­ate moral chord that also con­nects with con­ver­sa­tions about the impor­tance of achiev­ing social change through cross-gen­er­a­tional education.