Review: 'Invisible Life' is a beautiful, heartbreaking tale of sisters separated by a brutal father

The bonds are sisterhood are stretched, by the forces of time and patriarchy, in “Invisible Life,” a sumptuously constructed melodrama that pulls viewers in to its poetic beauty and heartache.

Euridice (Carol Duarte) is 18, and Guida (Julie Stockler) is 20, sisters living in Rio de Janeiro, circa 1950. The sisters both know what they want in life: Guida wants romance, a husband and a family; while Euridice wants to be a famous pianist. The main obstacle for both young women to achieve these dreams is their rigidly conservative father, Manuel (António Fonseca).

One night, Guida sneaks away from the house, and writes that she has eloped with a Greek sailor. She returns a few months later, single and pregnant, and is cast out into the streets by her father. What’s more, Manuel tells Guida a lie — that Euridice has left to pursue her dream, to study in a famous music conservatory in Vienna.

The truth is that Euridice, intimidated by her brutal father after Guida’s elopement, married Antenor (Gregorio Duvivier), an up-and-coming businessman, and settled for a traditional life as a homemaker and mother. But Euridice’s passion for music remains intense, gnawing at her to do more with her life than cook and clean and raise their child. Guida, on the other hand, must rebuild her life from the bottom, maintaining dignity as a single mom.

Rio is a big city, but the idea that these long-separated sisters could reunite is a tantalizing one. It leads director Karim Aïnouz to a gloriously tense scene where both sisters are in the same restaurant, but miss each other by moments — though their young children, who don’t know each other, share a moment talking and looking at the restaurant’s fish tank.

Aïnouz and screenwriter Murilo Hauser (adapting Martha Batalha’s novel) deftly capture the sweep of years, even decades, as the two sisters live physically apart but spiritually together, their lives a rebuke to the patriarchal system that separated them. Aïnouz is blessed with two powerful lead actresses in Duarte and Stockler, two halves of a gorgeous, heartbreaking whole that makes “Invisible Life” a delight to watch.

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‘Invisible Life’

★★★1/2

Opened December 13, 2019, in select markets; opens Friday, February 7, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for strong sexual content/graphic nudity and some drug use. Running time: 139 minute ; in Portuguese with subtitles.