A schoolteacher’s odyssey into erotic self-discovery and existential desire fuels this Brazilian drama, which is based on a novel by Clarice Lispector.
Lóri, the heroine of the decidedly grown-up Brazilian drama, “The Book of Delights,” is an unconventional sort — an elementary schoolteacher who encourages her young students to think about existentialism.
Outside the classroom, Lóri, played by Simone Spoladore, spends her time exploring her own existential desires. She’s a woman with an active erotic life, and multiple lovers, men and women, come to her apartment for a night. (She has her own apartment in the city, an inheritance from her late mother.) This matrilineal gift is an opportunity for freedom that Lóri does not want to waste.
But despite her fierce commitment to self-discovery, she is drawn to a particular partner, a philosophy professor named Ulisses (Javier Drolas). In a reversal of the Greek myth that inspired Ulisses’s name, it is he who waits for Lóri as she traverses the night. The pair are powerfully drawn to each other, but for their relationship to develop, Lóri must decide if she wants to incorporate partnership into her odyssey of independence.
For this story of self-determination, the director, Marcela Lordy, who wrote the script with Josefina Trotta, adapted the film from the 1968 novel “An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures” by Clarice Lispector.
The film does not share Lispector’s tendency for formalist innovation. It is a conventional-looking movie, with beautiful performers who deliver their lines in earnest close-ups. Even the film’s explicit sex scenes are shot in a straightforward manner, more informative than they are provocative or titillating. But to the movie’s benefit, it maintains the mature perspective that Lispector brought to her writing. At its best, shows its characters engaged in thoughtful conversations about independence and attraction.
If this erotic drama doesn’t break new cinematic ground, it also doesn’t cede its conviction in portraying relationships as a matter of serious consideration.
The Book of Delights
Not rated. In Portuguese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
