Graduation, school play, plan to lose your virginity. Bruno Barreto’s new feature film, “Traição Entre Amigas”, explores this climate of late adolescence and early adulthood, carried by a duo of successful actresses, particularly among young audiences.
Larissa Manoela and Giovanna Rispoli play best friends Penélope and Luiza, who finished high school in Curitiba. While the first, extroverted, is starting a career as an actress and has already had sexual relations, the second, shy and still a virgin, writes and composes romantic songs.
Until, of course, Penélope sleeps with the man Luiza is in love with, and the separation of the “BFFs” permanently transforms their trajectory.
Penélope is going to try her hand at an acting career in New York, Luiza is successful with a YouTube channel where she posts her songs. In line with popular streaming comedy-dramas, the film goes through a series of situations very typical of stories centered on this stage of life.
In New York, arriving in a new house – a small, musty apartment –, working to pay the bills – waxing, waitressing –, having sex with a girl for the first time. In Curitiba, Luiza’s first relationship with a doctor from Morretes who is doing his residency in pediatrics was “a match.”
So far, so good. The problem is management’s choices when things start to go wrong. How can we forgive the trash boy who claims to be a good guy, but leads a double (or triple) life? How can we listen to the speeches of a prejudiced mother who says that every woman is better off when she is next to a man? How to react when, at the entrance to the IVG clinic, flags appear in favor of the “preservation of life”? These situations are worth discussing and the attitude of bringing them to the big screen is commendable.
However, there was a lack of creativity and strong dialogue to address these plot crossroads. The result is a film which seems to condone patriarchal survivals and tolerate abusive attitudes.
Despite the fun side of Penélope, who manages to get her “hustle” in New York, selling colorful jewelry and taking advantage, as much as possible, of her free-loving attitude, well-mannered rudeness and outdated values predominate in the narrative.
On the other hand, although it is cool to see Curitiba beautiful on the big screen – and Bruno Barreto dedicates the film to Jaime Lerner, who distinguished himself by his mandate at the head of the city hall of Curitiba and the government of Paraná – some passages seem excessively advertising, like the sequences at the Arame Opera and on the tourist train to Morretes. In other words, there were still good intentions, there was a lack of cinema.
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