Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Invisible Life’ on Amazon Prime, a Must-See Brazilian Feminist Melodrama

Fans of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, take note: Amazon’s Invisible Life is its sister film in strinking visuals, feminist vigor and immersive period detail. Directed by Karim Ainouz, the film is a Brazilian melodrama based on Martha Batalha’s novel The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao; it took the top prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section in 2019. Review spoiler alert: It deserves any accolade it gets. It’s a stunner.

INVISIBLE LIFE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Euridice (Carol Duarte) and Guida (Julia Stockler) are sisters in steamy-hot mid-century Rio de Janeiro. They’re teenagers; inseparable; all but one. Euridice is a gifted pianist, and plays to distract their parents (Antonio Fonseca and Flavia Gusmao) while Guida sneaks out to meet the Greek sailor who has ignited her sexually. She doesn’t return. Then, a letter: Guida is getting married in Greece, and will return home with her new husband soon.

Time passes, to Euridice’s wedding night. Her friend Zelia’s (Maria Manoella) advice: it’ll sting a little, just close your eyes and think of something else. The consummation is anti-romantic, and her husband (Gregoria Duvivier) is such a shameful mediocrity, I resist typing his name. She dreams of studying piano at a Vienna conservatory, and would rather not get pregnant, but [husband] is a small, small gorilla, and is forceful. So she gets pregnant. She goes to Zelia, who says “it” is a sin and “it” is a crime, but… she knows someone. The idea is entertained, but like most women’s ideas in the ’50s, they’re left to wither. Nobody gives a good god damn about their hopes and desires, which leaves us seething. Euridice is just her husband’s… receptacle.

Not long after Euridice’s wedding, Guida returned, alone, pregnant. Guida narrates via letters to her sister: “I’m happy. At peace. But things didn’t go as I had dreamt. Iorgos is a scumbag.” She came home to a cruel, shameful father and complicit, emotionally moribund mother. The father lied to her: Euridice is in Vienna, he says, then disowns Guida, calling her a slut, stuffing money down her shirt, telling her he never wants to see her again. Perhaps worst of all, he hides her lovely, loving letters to Euridice. She lives, mostly destitute, until she meets a kind woman named Filo (Barbara Santos), who runs a daycare for working single women; never receiving letters in return, Guida assumes her sister also has disowned her. Guida has the child, abandons him in the hospital, goes out dancing and drinking, then returns for the baby. Meanwhile, Euridice hires a private detective to find her sister. They’re in the same city, but lost to each other in its density. Will they ever see each other again?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I already mentioned Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a gorgeous lesbian love story coursing with a similar subtext of feminine sexuality; each features a painterly firelit portrait of their impassioned protagonists worthy of framing. Those very impassioned protagonists in Invisible Life also recall the women in Pedro Almodovar’s sumptuous melodramas.

Performance Worth Watching: Go ahead. Try to tear your eyes away from Duarte and Stockler. Powerhouses.

Memorable Dialogue: An exchange between Guida, who has just given birth, and her female neighbor:

“Guida… what was it?”

“A boy.”

“Lucky him.”

Sex and Skin: Precisely in tune with the film’s themes, there’s plenty of it, and none of it is sexy, romantic, or at all appealing.

Our Take: Ainouz immediately establishes the overwhelming humidity of this story: Grainy textures, camera in tight, saturated primary colors — vivid yellows, greens, reds — smearing in the heat. The film then establishes the era as an awful time for women, as pathetic men essentially force extraordinary women to be nonentities, burdened by thankless housework and children they love, but didn’t want to have so young. It’s an ancient system of barbarism and debasement at work, depicted here as relentless and disgusting and absolutely socially acceptable.

This is nothing new, for sure, but the storytelling is impassioned and dynamic, emotionally wrenching, impressionistic yet detailed, a period film with themes empowered by our modern eyes. Guida struggles in the slums, but learns that “Family is not blood. It is love.” Euridice struggles in the middle class, finding only oppressive — and I keep going back to this word — mediocrity. Invisible Life is comedy and tragedy in the classical sense. It’s a rich emotional brew, an often depressive, occasionally cynical film. But it’s also engrossing and vibrant and never hopeless.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Movies need to fill our hearts with love before they can break them. Invisible Life does both.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.