Aquarius

Aquarius

“Quit being so set in your ways!” the woman cries to her mother, Clara (Sonia Braga), in “Aquarius.” “You’re both a child and an old woman!”

Kleber Mendonça Filho knows what he’s doing with Clara. That’s not to say that he condemns her; it’s quite the opposite, actually. Rather than trying to pin her down, he revels in every bit of confusion she brings with her. And he gets a performance from Ms. Braga that’s not just one of the crowning achievements of her long career but one of those rare moments in which film acting reveals itself as truly essential.

Clara is nothing if not a force of nature, thanks to Ms. Braga: someone who has lived and loved and lost but still approaches each day with verve with wide eyed wonderment at what might be out there for her to try next. So many movies reduce older characters to collections of odd or awkward moments; all too often we’re stuck watching Viagra jokes or early bird dinners or bafflement over Facebook and Twitter. Ms. Braga never lets us forget that Clara is a retired music critic who raised three children on her own after becoming a widow while also remaining sleekly stylish and luminously beautiful stubborn, too, as her practical daughter (Maeve Jinkings) likes to remind her.

Yes: stubbornness runs in this family. It is their second skin an elegant one at that, but still. Clara can be rebellious; she can be difficult; she can be more than a little passive aggressive when she wants to avoid conflict altogether. But “Aquarius” thank goodness never holds those things against its protagonist; instead, Mr. Mendonça Filho uses this strong-willed streak as an opportunity for Ms. Braga to show us so much about herself in just one withering glance or throaty laugh.

All of these qualities are on display in the director’s second feature, which (like his 2012 debut, “Neighboring Sounds”) is set in Recife, a sprawling Brazilian coastal city where he was born and raised. But while that film took a wide-angle look at an entire neighborhood full of people from various social strata, this one mostly sticks with Clara, who lives alone in an aging beachfront building called The Aquarius. It’s not just her home; it has been the most significant address of her life for several decades. She built a family there and a career there and became a grandmother there. She battled breast cancer and won there.

So when a slick young developer named Diego (Humberto Carrão), fresh off earning his business degree in the United States, shows up to ask if she would mind selling her apartment so that his company can put up something shiny and modern in its place instead, she politely declines. At first. But when they push harder louder she pushes back even more fiercely.

Mr. Mendonça Filho uses flashbacks throughout “Aquarius,” sometimes no more than a wispy moment or sensory memory at once to show us where Clara gets this steeliness from. And before we know her current story line begins here in 1980 with Tia Lucia (Thaia Perez), an independent beauty celebrating her 70th birthday surrounded by loved ones.

The manager also creates a bright sense of place in just some rooms of Clara’s apartment and the streets around her building; a big poster for Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lyndon” hangs in the dining room, and songs by Queen and other musical influences are used at key moments. His camera returns again and again to an antique dresser, handed down from Tia Lucia to Clara a piece of furniture that has many stories to tell.

But he also tantalizingly shows how characters and other key aspects of Clara’s life have evolved between the 1980 segment and now. Conversations with the affable, local lifeguard (Irandhir Santos) and nights out with her longtime girlfriends offer glimpses into her life and worldview. It can be baffling at times, but eventually it all makes sense. So pay attention.

That said, “Aquarius” is long at nearly two hours and 25 minutes, and it may feel a tad saggy in the middle although there are so many individual moments of grace that the film rewards you for sticking around. And the climactic ending may seem too bold next to Mendonca Filho’s understated tone throughout most of his film. But man oh man, is it satisfying.

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