This film is recommendable for its believability, characterizations and recreation (clothes, cars, radios, etc.) of 1950s Rio de Janeiro and an era when a stolid, unfair morality that discriminated against women and minorities was universally practiced. The two Gusmao sisters, daughters of a conservative Portuguese father, have ambitions beyond their background: Euridice dreams of studying piano in Vienna; the fun-loving Guida leaves Brazil with a Greek sailor. Her father is disgusted, and when she returns home alone and pregnant, disowns her. She, too independent to be ashamed, erases him from her life. Yet she tries to keep contact with her sister via letters to her more tolerant mother, who instead hides them.
The characters are realistic: Euridice, who conforms to bourgeois life by marrying an unimaginative postal official, still wants to study piano, yet ultimately rejects this option when she discovers their father's harshness to her sister. Meanwhile Guida , a single mother, does what she can to survive. Treated unfairly, she is is no repentant Magdalene: she still enjoys a good time. A major theme to the film is, despite their respective traumas, they inhabit the same city without being aware of it. This ties up decades later in a touching yet believable manner.
The characters are realistic: Euridice, who conforms to bourgeois life by marrying an unimaginative postal official, still wants to study piano, yet ultimately rejects this option when she discovers their father's harshness to her sister. Meanwhile Guida , a single mother, does what she can to survive. Treated unfairly, she is is no repentant Magdalene: she still enjoys a good time. A major theme to the film is, despite their respective traumas, they inhabit the same city without being aware of it. This ties up decades later in a touching yet believable manner.