The Secret Agent (15)

(Subtitled)

Language: Portuguese

Sprawling and quietly nerve-jangling, this brilliant Brazilian political-thriller from writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho blends political intrigue, family drama and flashes of violence into an absorbing portrait of a country on edge.

Set in 1977 Recife during Carnival, the story centres on Marcelo, a tech expert forced into hiding in a seaside boarding house run by the formidable Sebastiana. Reconnecting with his young son while searching for answers about his long-missing mother, Marcelo discovers that hired killers have arrived from São Paulo, sent by a powerful businessman determined to erase him. As the police look the other way and the festivities rage on, danger inches ever closer.

Mendonça Filho fills the frame with sharply observed period detail and a gallery of vivid supporting characters, each adding humour, warmth or menace. Wagner Moura anchors it all with a restrained, deeply human performance, capturing a father’s tenderness alongside a man’s growing fear. His scenes with the child are disarmingly gentle, lending emotional weight to the mounting suspense.

Loose in rhythm yet precise in design, the film builds toward jolts of shocking intensity, while its reflections on corruption and survival are pointed and unsettlingly current.