Angela (2023) User Reviews

It could be better

[mounsieurlapao · 6/10 · 8 October 2023]

It could have been a great movie. The director chose not to explain the crime or show the repercussions. It was a wrong choice in my view because it didn't inform the viewer about anything. There were many doubts, which I was only able to resolve after doing some internet research.

The actress didn't convince me. The lawyer and the chambermaid were good supporting characters. The final scene is true and follows step by step how the crime took place.

That's why the movie could have been much better. The constant sex scenes added nothing to the story. The story is very relevant, but the relevance of the story is not told during the movie. The dubious final interpretation is a negative point that couldn't exist.

Disappointing effort

[Rodrigo_Amaro · 5/10 · 7 December 2023]

Most disappointed with this one, a long-awaited project that is only seeing the light of day now since it's addressing a topic that's everywhere in the media and the case of Angela Diniz murder on the hands of her boyfriend Doca Street, in 1976, was huge on the issue of feminicide (back when such term didn't exist), and later on got the famous term "Quem Ama Não Mata" ("Who Loves does not Kill") coined.

The way for this to work would be a major exicision of the couple's relationship (played by Isis Valverde and Gabriel Braga Nunes), just going for paradise times, troubled times but without the excesssive sex scenes, breaking up and returns, go to the actual case and head for a long aftermath which is the trial and the debate generated on society. We'd have a better movie and a spetacular trial movie to shock audiences.

But nope. Instead, it focus on rich people's sadness (and I'm trying to not be insenstive). But it's like everybody's sad, all the characters.

Sure, one can learn a lot about relationship dynamics between men and women and how they cope at difficult times, and loving times, it's a so-and-so text book on the matter, but the majority of time there's a small series of glamoured life of the 1970's Brazil with the majority of it all is sadness and bitterness, nothing is complete.

The Diniz case set a huge blase on people, it's discussed ever since 1976 and today's audiences needed a more satisfying movie for audiences to learn about it, see how society changed (little, must say) from them and the women's movement end up becoming a powerful force afterwards.

Too bad the film became a series of excessive drama, jumpy because it doesn't explain much about an incident from her past - the dialogues were too criptic and I had to research about that incident; it's a repetitive film that just drags on with average performances - except for the maid, she was pretty good.

Suggestion: if available, the Linha Direta episode or just listen to Youtube coments on the topic or podcasts elsewhere. 5/10.

Own making

[kosmasp · 6/10 · 6 February 2024]

No pun intended - when I saw the poster (main actress), my first thought was: this is Gal Gadot ... is it not? (that does not count as a pun, right?) In case you are or were as confused as myself: it is not her, this is someone completely different - equally beautiful. Way better actress though - and I don't think that is a subjective opinion.

This is based on a real person - I did not know that, but after watching the movie I saw some of the references that imdb posted on the page - the movie feels a bit episodic. But it is still well told - and quite harrowing to say the least! That just in case you are thinking about it - can't be too sensitive about certain things ... the end credits also give some extra information ... about real life ...

The movie is failing the conclusion

[dragoshilbert · 3/10 · 26 December 2023]

In my opinion, the character depicted in the movie deserve to be punished, maybe not by death but honestly the movie make me to believe his reasons to pull the trigger and because of that, the movie fails to support the real woman and the conclusion that the Angela didn't deserve to die.

To kill someone because of honor is at least stupid and clearly a harsh punishment is required. But the movie fails this part, the moral part, the failing of the man who is not capable to control himself and cannot escape from her, he is also a victim, this is clear but the expected behavior, the moral story is not there.

Too much time spent in sex scenes that not only are low quality but brings too little, too much on her part of the story and honestly was impossible to have empathy for her and I think this is the biggest fail of the movie.

Maybe it should have been a movie about the aftermath and the changes in the society, that could have been a better story.

In conclusion: the movie fails to make the audience have empathy for her, sex scenes are useless and bad, creates more reasons to agree with his actions than with her fate. I am not in a position to judge if the real Angela deserved to die, I am sure she didn't, but the movie fails to make her a character that audience love.

Not a biopic, but an underrrated movie on misogyny in Brazil

[guisreis · 8/10 · 26 April 2024]

A good and extremely underrated film on a paramount misogynistic crime (and sexist Judicial system) in Brazil. All actors have good performances (Ísis Valverde is particularly successful in the leading role), cinematography is beautiful, direction is very competent, characters are deeply developped, and there are quite good dialogues. It is almost a sexploitation movie, considering the high number of sex scenes involving Ísis Valverde, Gabriel Braga Nunes, Bianca Bin... Several people criticized the film for not showing many important (and polemical) events of her life, being therefore an incomplete biographic movie. I agree with the diagnisis that it is not enough for a biopic (what the title may suggest), and a serious absence was not including the buzarre murder of the housekeeper after her separation and before she moved from Belo Horizonte to Rio de Janeiro. However, as a movie on violent misogyny and the structural sexism, which had the murder of Ângela Diniz as a turning point case, it succeeds.