Best Picture Nominees Ranked: № 6= I’m Still Here (2024):

“Forced disappearances were one of the cruelest acts of the regime. Someone can come into your house, take your husband away… throw him in jail, and say… He’s gone.”
Without question, the most surprising nomination at the 97th Academy Awards was the Best Picture nomination for the Brazilian film “I’m Still Here”. Despite premiering at the prestigious Venice Film Festival Biennial, where it won the award for best screenplay, few expected it to gain much more international acclaim. After a surprise win at the Golden Globes, where Fernanda Torres won the Best Leading Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama award, the film gathered enough momentum to pull off this monumental upset.
The story is based on the true story of the Paiva family and the hardships they faced under the Brazilian military junta. During the Cold War, the U.S. sponsored a coup d’état that deposed the left-leaning President João Goulart in 1964 and installed a repressive right-wing dictatorship that routinely violated human rights for 21 years until their downfall in 1985. The Paiva family’s patriarch, Rubens (played by Selton Mello), was a deposed congressman who retired and moved his family to Rio de Janeiro after the coup. He secretly smuggled information in and out of the country for the underground resistance and was forced into a military detention center for “questioning,” never to be seen again.
In her husband’s place, Eunice Paiva (played by Fernanda Torres) takes charge of the family, relentlessly searching for answers to his whereabouts. She moves the family to São Paulo and puts herself through law school, becoming a world-renowned human rights lawyer to help support her children. In 2018, she died after a long battle with Alzhimers, surrounded by her loving family. Paiva’s eldest son, Marcelo, wrote a memoir based on his mother’s story, which became the basis for the film.
The director, Walter Salles, has previously directed the 2004 Oscar winning film “The Motorcycle Diaries” and the 1997 nominee “Central Station.” The latter was nominated for Best International Feature and Best Actress for Fernanda Montenegro, a first for a Brazilian film. Coincidentally, Montenegro is also the mother of Torres, marking one of the few times in Oscars history that both a parent and their child were nominees in the same category. Montenegro also has a small role in “I’m Still Here,” playing Eunice Paiva in the film’s final scene.
Torres’ performance is absolutely magnetic and raw, carrying the picture on her shoulders. Although her category has some stiff competition from both Demi Moore in “The Substance” and Mikey Madison in “Anora”, there is still a chance that she can pull off a surprise victory come Oscar night. Also, due to the recent scandals that have plagued “Emilia Pérez” I am predicting the film to win the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.
The film is also extremely relevant to our current political climate, serving as a warning against right-wing fanaticism and advocating for compassion. My final rating for “I’m Still Here” is a moving 8/10.