Butler's Cinema Scene

Camilla Mardilla, Regina Case: Mother and daughter

“THE SECOND MOTHER” My rating: B (Opens Oct. 30 at the Tivoli)

112 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Having a live-in servant means that you’ve arrived, economically speaking.

Wether you ever become comfortable with the idea is something else entirely.

In Anna Muylaert’s “The Second Mother” the delicate domestic equilibrium of an affluent Brazilian household goes spinning out of control with the arrival of an unexpected guest.

But even before the interloper’s appearance, there are hints that not everything’s as rosy at it seems.

The middle-aged Val (Regina Case) has devoted 13 years to being a housekeeper and the nanny to Fabinho (Michael Joelsas), who has grown into a handsome adolescent. In truth, she’s been more a mother to Fabinho than his real mother, Barbara (Karine Teles), who keeps busy with some sort of high-profile career in the fashion world.

Fabinho’s father, Carlos (Lourenco Mutarelli), is a bearded, balding slacker who inherited great wealth and is content to spend his life dabbling in this and that on the sidelines. He’s a dope.

Muylaert’s screenplay initially depicts a friendly environment. The family treasurers Val.

The adolescent Fabinho even goes to her with problems that by all rights should be aired before his parents, and Val in return views him as her own boy. She spoils him rotten.

Which apparently is fine with Barbara. She’s just pleased that her housekeeper is so efficient. Granted, the dumbass Carlos can’t even get himself a glass of water without Val’s assistance, but she does so happily. She’s a nurturer, and this is her job.

Then trouble arrives in paradise. Val’s teenage daughter Jessica (Camilla Mardilla), who was raised by Val’s ex husband in another city, is coming to town to enroll at university. Val asks her employers if it’s OK for Jessica to stay with her in her room until she can find an apartment near campus.  The family says yes, of course.

But Jessica is appalled by her mother’s subservience. When the family members invite her to take full advantage of the house, she thinks they mean it. Val knows better, that this is just a polite pose..

The stubborn Jessica can’t grasp why she shouldn’t frolic in the swimming pool with Fabinho and his friend, given that they’ve invited her. Or why she shouldn’t move into the guest room (Val’s room being too small for two). Or why she should keep to herself the fact that she scored twice as high on the college entrance exams as the more privileged Fabinho.

Val’s embrace of class awareness — where everybody has their place — infuriates her stubborn, willful and egalitarian daughter.

There are further complications. The emotionally stunted Carlos falls for this rather sullen young woman. Which of course infuriates Barbara.

“The Second Mother” is a quietly subversive experience. It’s occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but mostly it’s a subtle examination of the distribution of power within a household, and of the roles people assume simply because it puts them in the best light. (Do you want to be your employee’s buddy, or his/her boss? Make up your mind.)

The film’s greatest shortcoming is that it’s a low-keyed affair, without major highs.

Still, its insights into the class struggle under one roof are right on point.

| Robert W. Butler