Casa Grande

Barbosa skillfully skewers the presumptions of rich folks who presume they deserve all that they've gotten, even as they're squandering it.

Mr. Cavalcanti, new to the screen, has a natural manner, by turns tentative and blustering.

The film uses its critique of white privilege as a means to woo the legitimizing gaze of international audiences.

Precariously balanced social structures maintaining class, race and expectations come crashing down in Casa grande, Fellipe Barbosa's well-made feature debut.

Cavalcanti -- an occasional TV performer whose considerable musical gifts the guitar-strumming Jean shares -- makes for a consistently engaging and intriguing protagonist.

This isn't the first Latin American drama to follow a rich family on a downward spiral, but the eloquent visuals, strong central performance, and empathetic humor push it to the forefront.

Overall, Casa Grande runs the risk of being labelled a 'serious teen film', but its alternative perspective of an affluent Brazilian family provides [Fellipe] Barbosa with a promising debut.

The film captures perfectly the customs of the upper classes but isn't subtle about its discourse. [Full review in Spanish]

Superb dissection of class and race contradictions in a society that is falling apart at the seams.

The smartly mounted effort, mostly set in a modernist villa on a lush edge of Rio, follows the young heir to a fast-crumbling fortune, as he hovers between honest self-discovery and numbing entitlement.