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Good Manners(As Boas Maneiras)

Clara, a lonely nurse from the outskirts of São Paulo, is hired to be a nanny for the unborn child of the mysterious and wealthy, Ana. They develop a close bond as they prepare for the baby. Yet, once Ana gives birth, they must face a frightful surprise. Suddenly, their tasks become much more complicated...
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WHAT ARE CRITICS SAYING?

70

Variety by Jay Weissberg

Class, desire, motherhood, responsibility to society — all these themes are worked in, to varying degrees. Yet balancing the film’s two halves is less successful, and certain shifts between humor and dead-seriousness don’t quite work.
90

The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis

Swerving from predictable to confounding, dreamy to demented, artful to awkward, this genre-twisting hybrid from Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra links art house and slaughterhouse with unexpected success.
67

The Film Stage by Leonardo Goi

For a first half so rich in plot, subtext and genres, it feels somehow frustrating to see Good Manners’s potential stall a little as the feature enters its second part.
83

The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo

There’s nothing especially wrong with the arty horror movie that Good Manners becomes, mind you, and the metamorphosis (unexpected, for those who haven’t read a review or seen the poster image, anyway) offers pleasures of its own.
70

The Hollywood Reporter by Neil Young

The first hour is the strongest, graced as it is by Estiano's nuanced performance as a conventional-seeming young woman who gradually and very sympathetically reveals her inner self after welcoming Clara into her life.
90

Los Angeles Times by Noel Murray

This is a different kind of monster movie, no doubt. It’s beautiful and magical, and as aware of the real world as it is of classic Hollywood. Good Manners is a haunting tale of love — and the burdens that come with it.
83

The Playlist by Oliver Lyttelton

Pulling off an ambitious mash-up of genres like Good Manners is no easy feat — that Dutra and Rojas pull it off so successfully suggests we’ll be hearing a lot more from them down the road.
80

Screen International by Wendy Ide

Genre defying and genuinely unexpected, this intriguing urban fairytale takes the mythology of the werewolf story and uses it as a prism through which to view contemporary Brazilian society. Thematically rich, it weaves together fantasy horror elements with commentaries on class, race, sexuality and motherhood.

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