Possible Loves (2001) User Reviews (16)

Three Tales in One: Possibilities of Destiny

[gradyharp · 8/10 · 5 March 2006]

'Amores Possíveis' (POSSIBLE LOVES) is fine little film from Brazil courtesy of writers Paulo Halm and Maya Werneck Da-Rin and polished young director Sandra Werneck. Filmed in Rio de Janeiro in Portuguese, the story of three possible outcomes of a potential love affair is cleverly conceived and is acted with aplomb by a fine cast of actors, and though billed as a comedy it shines with some dramatic truths that carry it far beyond the usual fluff so often before us in this country.

The 'story' is three stories in one: fifteen years ago Carlos (the inordinately handsome and talented Murilo Benício) was to meet a fellow college student Júlia (beautiful and elegant Carolina Ferraz) and the film takes that moment and creates three possibilities: 1) Carlos married Júlia and had a son with her and in the present has left her for a male lover Pedro (Emílio de Melo), 2) Carlos longed for her while being married to a comfortable but not exciting Maria (Beth Goulart) and meets Júlia as the film opens, leaving his Maria for his long desired romance with her, and 3) Carlos has never married, is a lothario living with his possessive widowed mother (Irene Ravache) and encounters the artsy looney Júlia as yet another conquest. How these three possibilities for the true ending of a fifteen year missed cinema appointment reveal the true version is the story of the film. Using the same actors for the various roles and mixing the progress of each story variation can confuse the audience at times, but the actors are so fine in demonstrating the varied aspects of each character transformation that the film becomes a suspenseful puzzle. The endings of each version contain important lessons about love and, well, you just have to watch it to enjoy the details.

The film fizzes with sexual excitement on many levels and is completely unafraid to take a realistic look at both straight and gay relationships, showing how similar they actually are. It is not a 'great film' nor does it purport to be, but is certainly entertains and showcases some superbly talented and beautiful actors from Brazil! In Portuguese with English subtitles. Recommended for all audiences. Grady Harp

A film about love, or maybe about passion

[Red-125 · 8/10 · 31 October 2002]

An interesting film, but not a great one. The basic question--"What if...." is always fascinating. This question is not really explored carefully, but it does provide the basis for the plot.

The actors are handsome/beautiful, and the love scenes are artful. However, don't expect gritty Latin American realism. We are shown a Brazil where everyone is attractive, everyone lives in elegant apartments, and there is beauty everywhere. (No slums, no crime, no blemishes.)

Basically, this film is pared down to three love stories--no one worries about work, or social issues, or whether Lula will become President of Brazil. No one talks about anything besides love, or maybe really sexual passion.

Still, this movie is not boring, it is great to look at, and it is honest in it's own limited way. Not worth a special trip, but worth seeing if the opportunity presents itself.

Good film, great characters

[p_0 · 8/10 · 9 May 2006]

The "what if?" technique of three alternate life lines that 'Amores Possiveis' employs makes for a very interesting story if not a classic feature. The film's well-directed and well-acted definitely but its true strength lies in the script.

The different versions of each of the players are especially well characterised. Carolina Ferraz is absolutely amazing in portraying the different places that the character of Julia finds herself in and making them believable, Emílio de Melo makes each Pedro amusing in different ways while keeping the same subtly sentimental core.

Most importantly however, though principal actor, Murilo Benício doesn't seem to be the most astonishing of actors, he has an amazing and amazingly written character, in Carlos, whose portrayal he absolutely owns. And so 'Amores Possiveis' ends up being a more than decent film -great in bits, a tad trite perhaps in others- but an absolutely excruciating portrayal of the many ways that one single man can be a cowardly, childish asshole and how there may still be those slight possibilities that he can escape his own shortcomings.

Three Possible Loves

[FafaSays · 5 December 2004]

Carlos, a lawyer, has three different lives but one thing is the same: A dream about ex girlfriend, Julia. Years earlier, Carlos and Julia were supposed to meet at the movies. She never showed up.

The first Carlos is married to his wife, Maria, but is not very happy with his life. The second Carlos is divorced with a son and lives with his male lover. The third Carlos is single with a string of different girlfriends and lives at home with his mother.

Each man is reunited with his love, Julia, but the ending for each man is not what you'd expect.

Amores Possíveis (Possible Loves) is an interesting story of three different possible loves. It is acted out well by the main characters Murilo Benico and Carolina Ferraz who play multiple parts.

I also liked the music soundtrack, which featured songs by musicians like Chico Buarque, Zizi Possi, Ana Carolina, João Gilberto, Paulinho Moska, Bonga, Afro Cuban All Stars and much more.

Just a love story

[elvis_rj · 7/10 · 3 November 2006]

This is not the greatest movie of all times, but it's fun to watch. I've just seen it on a local network and was reminded on how surrealistic it is. I mean, they're college colleagues and he's not sure she likes him, but has the courage to invite her to the movies. She doesn't show up. Then, fifteen year pass by until they meet again. Well...He didn't have her phone number? She never showed up again in college? Then, how did she graduates? At a certain point she claims she left for two years to the US, then stayed there for 10 years. That all happened that night when she was supposed to meet him at the theater? But don't forget, this movie doesn't rely on reality at all! It's about wild possibilities in the lifetime of two people. Worth taking a look at anytime one's got spare time.

A movie to think about...

[Paulo-30 · 10/10 · 17 April 2001]

Amores Possíveis... Possible Loves... Possible Lessons of Life.

This is a great movie. Probably one of the two best Brazilian movies i've ever seen (the other is "Cronicamente Inviável"). This movie makes us think about what love is and if one can build a life based on love.

The actors are perfect, especially Murilo Benício. His three Carlos are the same guy but with different characteristics.

The third story is the funniest but the one that is told in a better way is the second: it shows the best of the director and the actors.

A really good movie. That is... a GREAT movie.

Will Drive You to the Nut House

[wc1996-428-366101 · 5/10 · 30 August 2012]

Okay, I ordered this film because I had just seen the male lead in The Man of the Year and thought he was absolutely the bee's knees - and I still think he is even after this disastrous film. But oh boy this film is a perfect example of when a bunch of women get together to make a movie. It is so female. By the end of this film I was ready to have my period and I'm not even female. Geez, give me a break. I never saw so much heart-rending, soul-searching mumble jumble in my life that spouts from the female lead here. Yikes! It's all I could do to keep up with her roller-coaster of emotions which washed over me like a wayward tsunami. The supporting cast was fabulous - especially the male lead's male lover and the male lead's mother who had me in stitches she was so funny. There is one hilarious scene where the mother comes in to wake up the male lead and discovers a punk lady under the sheets who the male lead doesn't even know is there. That really cracked me up.

3 for the price of 1

[foxface · 8/10 · 3 June 2009]

Amores Possieves is film about three possible outcomes of a romance between Carlos and Julia. This film manages to be humorous and poignant at the same time. The director does a good job of moving between the three romances and the three versions of Carlos, Julia, and Pedro.

I think Pedro (Emilo de Melo) does a fantastic job at being the voice of reason to Carlos in his various incarnations. Murilo Benicio (Carlos) seems to be at his best acting, portraying the divorced Carlos, who is not sure if he wants Julia or Pedro. Because Benico pulls so much sympathy for Carlos from the audience, you become blind to his selfishness and in a way his manipulation of Julia and Pedro. He knows Julia still wants him and realizes (as Pedro gently reminds him or calls him out, however you want to see it) how easy it is to restore her passion for him. Yet, Carlos portrays himself as a victim of her anger and claims not to understand her viciousness toward him, despite the fact Julia has told him she wishes he were dead. Pedro reminds Carlos he left her for a gay man and thus, destroyed their relationship and her self esteem. The most tender scene between Pedro and Carlos is when Pedro asks Carlos if there is something going on between him and Julia and Carlos says, "I don't know how to lie to you."

Carolina Ferraz does a great job as Julia in all of her incarnations and with each version of Carlos, she realizes his short comings and decides to love him anyway. The way she dresses as ex-wife Julia, is almost symbolic of Julia's feeling her femininity has been cut out or destroyed by Carlos. She reverts back to a soft (she puts on a dress, is less tense), almost casual Julia, when it seems as if Carlos is headed back to her. Ferraz's strongest acting skills come to light as ex-wife Julia. You feel the passion, the pain of betrayal, and the tragedy of loving someone too much and having that person destroy you.

The extended adolescence of Carlos is great and does a good job of capturing the relationship between a mother and son, with a touch of Oedipus complex for good measure. The long shaggy hair, his lack of transportation, and Carlos living at home are all excellent backdrops to a man who fears commitment and is looking for someone just like mom. His arrogance and stupidity are on full display when signing up for computer love.

The tepid relationship Carlos and Maria endure, does a good job of making the audience wanting Carlos to leave Maria for the passion he could share with Julia, but also does a good job of showing what happens when a dream is realized and the reality of that dream, or in this case Julia, comes crashing in. Carlos realizes that even with Julia he cannot escape the demands of a relationship and honesty. His reluctance to leave Maria or hurt her, and his need to be with Julia on a "trial basis" shows the lack of clarity he has. Of course Maria knows Carlos isn't on a business trip, which is why she seems almost smug in her attitude towards Julia in the store, who gets a shock of her own. You see the maturation of Carlos when he ends his relationship with Julia and realizes you can't build a relationship on dreams and lies. He and Maria don't have passion, but they have an investment in each other and clearly he has a profound respect for Maria.

Eventually all versions of Carlos arrive at a point of clarity when he stops deceiving himself and come to grip with the realities of his love for the Julias. The rose colored glasses come off and he finds that there is no form of love that doesn't have thorns. All in all a movie that keeps you interested, with and ode to forties films at the end.

Murilo Benício outshines everything and everybody else in this interesting movie

[jm10701 · 11 November 2012]

This interesting movie's story and characters are overshadowed by Murilo Benício's tour-de-force performance as Carlos - rather as the three Carloses. He is so stunning that it's hard to care or even be aware of anything else.

Just watching him shift so expertly and so convincingly and with such apparent ease and mastery between the three very different personas is vastly entertaining and makes the movie definitely worth watching, but it also makes appreciating anything else about the movie nearly impossible. I suspect that Carolina Ferraz's three Júlias and Emilio de Melo's three Pedros are equally impressive, but they persistently fade into the background beside Benício's brilliance.

It makes me want to watch his other movies to see if he so dramatically dominates everything he does, or if director Sandra Werneck just pulled this extraordinary performance out of him. He's much like Marlon Brando, in that his monumental talent as an actor, his almost superhuman physical beauty, and the strength of his presence so outshine everything around him that it's hard to see anything or anybody else in the movie. Brando was like that in every movie he made; it'll be interesting to see if the same is true of Murilo Benício.

A nice script experiment

[Yorsh · 8/10 · 24 August 2003]

I saw this film yesterday in a very tiny cinema in Frankfurt, in the back part of a bar. A really cool place that created the necessary environment to watch this movie.

This is a film one would always like to see. Three different stories based on almost the same script, with different characters and life situations. One of these stories with a different ending. The one that all of us would like to be the `real' one, if there is such a thing like a real one, the one with the happy ending. Unfortunately the most improbable one.

This three parallel stories are not based, as `Run Lola Run', in three different consequences on how the main character decides in front of one situation. This is a nice script experiment, involved in a very funny movie. I enjoyed it, and I hope you will enjoy it too.

Absolutely fantastic.

[wsered1 · 10/10 · 6 January 2003]

I saw this film at the 2002 Filmfest DC (Washington), and was blown away by the complexity of the characters (in each possible lifeline), the giddy zest of the film's story and general flow, and the fact that this film was not picked up for distribution in the USA. I won't go into the specifics of the story (it has been some time since I saw the film and others have spoken to the plot elements and storytelling style), but this seems to be a clear choice for some Miramax-type distributor to swoop down and make a few million off of. I would love to see this film again -- frankly, I miss it -- and I'm glad to see it's still making the festival circuit. It gives me hope that this film might someday make it to DVD. A great film for someone who read "Choose Your Own Adventure" books as a child.

A well-made comedy about 3 possible love lives of 1 person

[kipper-5 · 9/10 · 19 December 2002]

"Possible Loves" doesn't pretend to be more than a romantic comedy, "realistic" in its way. I thought it was as good as any produced in Hollywood. Not every Brazilian film has to be depressing. Happiness, and even prosperity, are also possible.

Of course this isn't the first funny Brazilian movie, but it's been a long time since "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands", and "Bye Bye Brazil," and they were both set in a Brazil that was already passing out of existence. "Possible Loves" is not only funny but takes modern life for granted.

A playfully loopy romantic comedy

[davidals · 8/10 · 22 September 2003]

*Minor spoilers*

Easily one of the most inventive and refreshing romantic comedies I've seen in quite some time, POSSIBLE LOVES adapts the influence or structure of films like RUN LOLA RUN (or even RASHOMON) and uses it to breathe new life into a questionable genre.

The basic scenario revolves around a man, stood up by a woman he's made a date with. 15 years later (a certain suspension of disbelief is called for here) they run into each other, and she wonders what his life has been like during the intervening years (they are at least comfortably middle-class in all versions of the story). In response, 3 imagined scenarios - told from his perspective - are offered as possibilities: as a high-powered, and unhappily married yuppie executive, as a young gay man leaving a fractured marriage for a new life with his companion, or as a perpetually adolescent slacker (with a string of questionable ex-girlfriends) living in his mother's sprawling home. In all scenarios, they both are still - in the context of each story - looking for affection and stability that in unspoken ways has still managed to elude them.

The film shifts between the three scenarios (they aren't presented in order) continually, and all three portrayals are depicted with great warmth, subtle detail and feature great performances from Murilo Benício and Carolina Ferraz, who both display a startling range as they enact the three variations on "what if..."

If you're looking for social realism, you won't find it here (which is fine; there are other, excellent places to look for that) - POSSIBLE LOVES is instead a sweet-natured fairy tale of sorts, that nonetheless manages to playfully tweak viewers' perceptions with the deliberate unreality of tiny details in each of the the three scenarios. Simple but elegant cinematography captures Rio at its' stunning best. Very well-crafted and entertaining - I finished this film shocked that it didn't gain a wider audience in the US.

Melancholic story

[Vincentiu · 8/10 · 31 December 2006]

Story about love and desire. About fault and opportunity. In a cold rainy evening a young man expects,in front of cinema house, a faculty girl mate. Time passing, it is late, the waiting is unavailing. But she is his great love and, in fact, the axle of his life. So, Carlos create three scenarios about relationship. And the tale begins.

I do not believe in a easy movie, a funny love story with some Capra's drops. Every day is result of choices. Every fact is reflection of a frame of mind and few gestures. Every hour, every event are the body of a special emotion, of a special intention. So, Carlos choice is the universal choice, the question of each moment.

In fact, it is same story of relation between Orpheus and Eurydice. About small error who transform a love story in a grievous search.

For me, the real future story is the first. The duty is always the perfect butcher and, the past only good consolation. Julia is the perfect desire and the temptation to create the ideal family is a fullish error.

But the success of film is, in a great measure, the result of Murilo Benicio's acting. His character is create with subtle art and script insight.

This story sounds familiar to me.

[Dennis M · 15 June 2002]

Three different stories, or better possible lives, all starting with something insignificant but determining 15 years ago. This script sounds really familiar to me. Watch the marvelous movie from the German director Tom Tykwer 'Lola rennt' (1998) with the tagline: "Every second of every day you're faced with a decision that can change your life." Go see them both!

the flavor

[Kirpianuscus · 4 April 2017]

a film of flavors.the flavors of love . and sex. seductive, sweet, a little bitter. but comfortable, romantic and the best choice after a long and not easy work day. a Brazilian film. and this defines all. not a soap opera but not real far. because the same ideal universe, with three versions, same game of feelings and desires , same need of the other and the expectation to be the right choice are present. but something did the difference. not real precise. maybe, the actors. and the story who seems be created for everyone.