Um Amor de Perdição (2008) Reviews

• Nice, but too much.

  suspyria2010-12-07

  If there's a word to describe this film, that word is too much. It's a nice film, with beautiful moments (particulary concerning photography), but it lacks a storyline and it has too much drama. Where's the justification behind the deep love that unites Simão and Teresa? Their story doesn't make much sense, at least not in the modern era. Furthermore, Simon is just your typical rich rebellious guy, too pretentious and wanna be bad, thus becoming annoying at times. Mariana should be a stronger character, her role in the film, doesn't amount to much in the end. I liked Rita's character (the way she talks is a bit artificial at times, but that's acceptable, concerning her age), and Zé Xavier plays a good character as well. I expected more from this film, but still, it was entertaining enough.

• Platonic love

  mario_c2013-02-06

  It's a modern and free adaptation of the Portuguese novel "Amor de Perdição", written in XIX century by Camilo Castelo Branco (famous Portuguese writer), as told in the beginning of the film. I didn't read the original novel but I believe the similarities are just in the main topic: the story of a forbidden romance. It's a nice film but it lacks some credibility at parts and there're some characters which are not well explained, neither their actions. I'm talking about SIMÃO mother (played by Ana Padrão) and his brother, for instance, which have a very strange relationship… It is suggested they don't have a normal mother/son relationship… On the other side MARIANA (played by Catarina Wallenstein) has a crush for SIMÃO (Tomás Alves) but never really tries to fight for his love. But the main topic is really the platonic love between SIMÃO and TERESA (Ana Moreira) which ends in tragedy, as in the original novel…