38
Slant Magazine by Diego Semerene
The film is a rebellion of surfaces that never quite reaches, or emanates from, the underpinning roots of its fable.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
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
Village Voice by Serena Donadoni
Rojas and Dutra have created a singular fable where anxiety and fear are directed inward, even when the danger is all too real.
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.
Good Manners is a fascinating film that packs multiple genres: fantasy, horror, coming of age, etc., into a concise story about a woman falling into motherhood and the world that forces her to keep her sons sheltered.