Regina (Fernanda Montenegro) is a retired divorcée living in Rio de Janeiro. She's estranged from her only son and his family because he's invited his father to live with him. She's devoted to her dog, Betina, and occupies her spare time as a member of the police force's special senior citizen program. Regina, operating under the code name "Snow White" spends a lot of her time looking for wrongdoers to report to the police. She spends her evenings looking out her apartment window with binoculars
into the windows of her neighbors across the street. One night, she watches as an older gentleman appears to give his bedridden wife a lethal injection. She reports it to the police, but they back off when they learn that the gentleman, Carmago (Raul Cortez), is a respected member of the judiciary. Alcides (Luiz Carlos Persy), Regina's police contact, gets so much political flack that he kicks Regina out of the program. But Regina takes it upon herself to continue the investigation on her own. Carmago notices that he's been seeing her around a lot, and, thinking it's a coincidence, asks Regina out on a date. She accepts for the sake of her "investigation," but before long the two find that they are really hitting it off. The Other Side of the Street was co-written and directed by Marcos Bernstein, who co-wrote the script for Central Station, the film that earned Montenegro an Academy Award nomination. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
The Other Side of the Street is more love story than thriller, with the mystery providing only slack tension and the December-December romance that ultimately develops between Regina and Camargo crackling with drama and sexual tension aplenty.
A languid, delicate character study; the strengths of the film are found in the loving yet unsentimental portrayal of its two intensely troubled, carefully drawn protagonists.
Regina has no traces of caricature and is portrayed as a disgruntled snoop, a disappointed mother and a lonely 75-year-old looking for emotional and physical companionship.
NY Times did not like this movie. I disagree. Other Side of the Street is an excellent movie with long time Brazilian movie star Fernanda Montenegro (from brazils "Central Station"). Some call it a Brazilian Rear Window but really its a movie about an elderly woman's loneliness. She acts as part time snitch/police
informer to fill in the time of her boring retirement. Things happen that cause her to loose control and things happen she could not possibly anticipate. This movie has a mystery and the right amount of melancholy. Some great street view of Brazilian life in Rio De Janiero. Montenegro and Cortez are fantastic in their roles. Four Stars I recommend this movie --its really an excellent movie. Certainly one of the best movies of 2005
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