Movie Reviews

Bossa Nova

28 Sep 2000

Like the dances for which they were named, "Salsa" was sexy and basically empty, while "Tango" was sprightly and outrageous. "Bossa Nova", the latest film to be named after a dance, also reflects its title: energetic, entertaining, romantic in the right places, but not much else.

This is frothy romantic comedy, Brazilian-style, directed with flair by Bruno Barreto, with a soundtrack filled with the music of bossa nova musician Antonio Carlos Jobim. Set, appropriately, in Rio de Janiero, Bossa Nova centres on Mary Ann Simpson (played by Barreto's wife, Amy Irving), a widowed English teacher, whose students and their acquaintances wander through each other's lives, in a series of coincidences that could only happen in a comedy. Of course, there is love in the air, with Mary Ann herself romancing Pedro Paulo (Antonio Fagundes), a lawyer whose wife has just left him for a Chinese tai-chi teacher.

Scripted by Alexandre Machado and Fernanda Young, Bossa Nova is a very funny film, in its gentle way, with an ensemble of well-played characters who wouldn't be out of place is a good sitcom. They are not developed enough for anything more profound, but that matters little, because while Bossa Nova focuses on love, it doesn't really comment on the subject to any extent. Here is a film where two internet friends will meet and find themselves perfect for each other, despite years of lying to each other online; where the soccer star and his groupie will meet and fall instantly in love. It's a film where nobody is really bad, so everyone has a happy ending.

Well, almost everyone. That's a problem. In such a sweet, happy comedy, you don't want people to lose out, to remind you of reality. It is especially unsuitable for this film, which skims over all sides in the game of love, simplifying everything, asking us to accept (with little or no explanation) that things transpire the way they do. It is rarely less than fun, but you are left feeling a little unsatisfied, wishing that the characters had been fleshed out more, that the subject had been dealt with in a less flippant way. Instead, we have a movie as sweetly forgettable as the average Hollywood romance.