Better Days Ahead

(Carlos Diegues, Brazil, 1989)

In 1993, The NBC Today Show covered the case in Brazil of a soap opera star who was killed off-screen by her on-screen lover – creating an especially delicate situation for her mother, the show's chief writer!

Carlos Diegues' film explores a similar paradox via the character of MVerdanava (played by the remarkable Marília Pêra from Mixed Blood [1985]), a failed actress who dubs the lead role of an American soap-sitcom.

Unfortunately, Diegues exploits relentlessly an extremely facile opposition between fake soapie fantasy and gritty, unromantic, everyday life.

© Adrian Martin January 1993