Find Movies & TV
Home
Live TV
On Demand
Discover
Explore
Movies & TV Shows
Most Popular
Leaving Soon
Categories
Action
Animation
Comedy
Crime
Documentary
Drama
En Español
Horror
Music
Romance
Sci-Fi
Thriller
Western
Explore
Browse Channels
Featured Channels
Crime 360
Nashville
FailArmy
Categories
Hit TV
Drama TV
Movies
True Crime
News
Sports
Reality
Classics
Sci-Fi & Action
Chills & Thrills
Comedy
Game Shows
Nature & Travel
History & Science
Food & Home
Lifestyle
Kids & Family
En Español
International
Anime+
Music
Sign In
Vitalina Varela
Directed by
Pedro Costa
Not Rated
2020
2h 4m
Drama
6.7
95%
57%
6.6
Add to Watchlist
A Cape Verdean woman navigates her way through Lisbon, following the scanty physical traces her deceased husband left behind and discovering his secret, illicit life.
More
Where to Watch Vitalina Varela
Fandor
Subscription
Fandor Amazon Channel
Subscription
YouTube TV
Subscription
+2 more
Cast of Vitalina Varela
Vitalina Varela
Screenplay
Ventura
Lina Varela
Manuel Tavares Almeida
Francisco dos Santos Brito
Imídio Monteiro
Marina Alves Domingues
João Baptista Fortes
Nilsa Fortes
Lisa Lopi
Benvinda Mendes
João Raimundo Monteiro
Bruno Brito Varela
Pedro Costa
Director / Screenplay
Abel Ribeiro Chaves
Producer
Leonardo Simões
Director Of Photography
João Dias
Editor
Vítor Carvalho
Editor
Gonçalo Ferreira
Colorist
João Gazua
Sound Mixer
Vitalina Varela Ratings & Reviews
The Ringer
Adam Nayman
Costa-who is one of the great image makers-visualizes that sense of relief and renewal beautifully. It's amazing how powerful the sight of blue skies can be after being plunged into endless night.
The Baffler
A.S. Hamrah
There is a reason there are not many films like this. Vitalina Varela is so uncompromising and so concentrated that it threatens to absorb the projector beam...
LarsenOnFilm
Josh Larsen
...a work of astonishing visual richness, boasting a depth of dark and light, a fullness of color, and an exquisite care for composition.
Nashville Scene
Jason Shawhan
If you can give two hours of your existence to a dark room and sincere thought, there's nothing more essential available right now.
Reeling Reviews
Laura Clifford
The film, shot almost entirely at night by cinematographer Leonardo Simões, is breathtakingly beautiful...In one beautiful bit of alchemy, clothespins appear as raised praying hands over black cloaks which dance as Vitalina edges past them.
Film Inquiry
Soham Gadre
It feels strange to say that Vitalina Varela is a visually stunning film because what it depicts is an ugly failing of people. It's a film submerged in regret, remorse, anger, and in some ways a faint light of hope (but just faint).
Jaredmobarak.com
Jared Mobarak
Vitalina Varela isn't going to be for everyone as a result. It might be slow moving, but it's emotionally profound.
It's Just Movies
Ron Wilkinson
Masterful cinema and a no holds barred lesson about people who are counted out and find hope in themselves.
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Vitalina Varela is demanding, rewarding, and ineffably stirring.
TheWrap
Dave White
Costa rejects voyeurism and condescension in favor of a form of storytelling solidarity with his actors, one where there's no buffer of irony, no distancing effects.
RogerEbert.com
Monica Castillo
A breathtakingly gorgeous movie about love, death, and immigration.
AV Club
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
[T]he surface quietudes, somnambulant movements, and rigors of a film like Vitalina Varela serve to turn every subtlety, every crinkling plastic bag and squeaky door, into a reverberating event.
New York Times
Glenn Kenny
It's essential cinema.
Film Comment Magazine
Jordan Cronk
[Vitalina Varela] invests a tragic episode in its heroine's life with an intimacy and grace that forges new dimensions in Costa's cinema.
The New Yorker
Richard Brody
Spectacular images, ideas, emotions, and performances are embedded in the lugubrious pace and tone of Pedro Costa's modernist fusion of classic melodrama and documentary.
Los Angeles Times
Justin Chang
Your eyes drift toward every beam of light, every carefully placed pool of illumination in this grimly beautiful nightscape, the latest work by an artist who has found, in darkness, a remarkable new way of seeing.
812filmreviews
Robert Daniels
Masters of the elegiac need not measure every somber sigh. In this Portuguese drama, Costa proves his immense talent for matching the esoteric with the human.
Variety
Jay Weissberg
Only the powerful screen presence of the lead, whose life story this is, saves this punishingly dark work from drowning in its own purposeful opacity.
IndieWire
Eric Kohn
Another lyrical vision of somber people confronting their past.
The Hollywood Reporter
Neil Young
Even if audiences find themselves adrift in the convolutions of the screenplay's non-linear narrative, there are near-incessant compensations in the form of Leonardo Simoes' cinematography.
Take Plex everywhere
Watch free anytime, anywhere, on almost any device.
See the full list of supported devices
Home
Live TV
On Demand
Discover
