Although this is a strong ensemble piece about three generations of women, it felt like it came in a long line of films that I had seen over the last few weeks about women who are essentially damaged.

In the 90s in Brazil, the Malu of the title is an actress (Yara de Novaes), no longer working but still fully committed to her craft. She lives in Rio de Janeiro, but in a remote place on the Atlantic ocean in a tumbledown house with her ageing mother Lili (Juliana Carneiro da Cunha). Malu never stops talking, recalling the stories of her glory days of the past,  of being a revolutionary and a communist, fighting for feminism and for art and the rights of people. She has a companion in Tibira (Átila Bee), a fellow thespian who rents a room from her and supplies her with drugs, mainly weed which seems like a gentle version of a much more multicoloured medicinal past.

Her daughter Joana (Carol Duarte from La Chimera) comes to visit, also an actor but Malu’s narcissism doesn’t allow any sense of a genuine interest in her daughter’s experiences or prospects. You can see why Joana chooses to live in Sao Paulo with her father. Malu‘s relationship with her mother is also tempestuous, and we slowly realise that they are perhaps, cut from the same damaged cloth.

There is not a lot of maternal love shown, just insults and teasing and occasionally violence. There are a couple of pivotal moments that open the window to the multigenerational trauma that we are witnessing. One is from Lili and this is awful, particularly in the way she sees it. The other is with Malu when we realise that her scattered thinking and repetitive stories might be a signal of something else.

An end credit indicates this is about a real Brazilian actor, Malu Rocha, providing a bit of clarity perhaps about the biographical nature of the film and perhaps why it seems like a snippet from a life rather than a fully formed narrative.

I think we were supposed to feel intensely emotionally engaged with the three women, particularly by the end where there are some very heartfelt scenes between Malu and Joana, but I just couldn’t feel it. I think it was the relentless egotism and self absorption of Malu that made me not like really care about her prospects.