‘Vitalina Varela’ Review: Death of a Longing, Long Misplaced

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Pedro Costa’s drama follows a woman as she uncovers the truth about her recently deceased, long-estranged husband

By Joe Morgenstern March 26, 2020 5:39 pm ET A passenger jet arrives at night in Lisbon shortly after “Vitalina Varela” gets under way, and a woman, neither old nor young, descends the stairway. The first thing we notice is her bare feet. Almost as notable is how the airplane’s gleaming wings and tail form a startlingly beautiful chiaroscuro composition. Every scene is a composition, an exquisite stage set, mysterious and shadowy with muted colors until the sun bursts forth at the story’s end.

If that sounds mundane, it is anything but. Ms. Varela’s face is as expressive as a silent-film star’s, and her past emerges powerfully from what she says and feels in the present as Vitalina—the astonishingly vivid character—takes up residence in Joaquim’s tumbledown house and tries to learn what he was up to since he left her and their island home four decades ago.

Nothing good, as it turns out. The more she listens to his friends, and rummages through his paltry belongings, the more she realizes that the man she longed for all those years was a fool, a failure, a womanizing bum. Far from being a sentimental journey, Vitalina’s trip to Lisbon becomes the occasion for venting her fury. But now I’m making an unusual film sound conventional, because Mr.

 

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