I've seen my fair share of movies and TV shows and as a Portuguese, I've grown up to have a very biased opinion towards Portuguese content - culturally speaking we are known to produce an insane amount of soap operas but not so much movies or TV shows - and as I grew up I had this completely wrong idea that we simply lacked the quality to do so.
As I started to consume more Portuguese content, it became clear that our main problem is actually budget; we don't lack at all in creativity or fantastic actors, we do lack in funding from the Government in our culture and that of course reflects on the content no matter how good the original idea is.
With that being said, we are seeing a change in trend, and thanks to partnerships and opportunities like this (Netflix actually producing a Portuguese TV show) we can clearly see the proof how much the budget can make a difference.
The story is a fictional one, yet is set on a very real context in history - there are a lot of things I can point as very positive: the cinematography is amazing, the direction and camera work are on point for the spy genre, most actors do an amazing job (the main character I had some troubles at first as it seemed to have some lack of charisma, but he does get better as the story unfolds) and the plot itself is engaging, some predictable twists but other unexpected events as well.
It might not be a brilliant or ground breaking series, but it is original on some aspects, believable, and most of all a truly great achievement for Portugal - I can't stress this enough, I've already seen some not so commercial series and even Portuguese movies fantastically made, but Glória is probably the best national content I've seen that has the most probable global recognition.
In our country we tend to be very critical, but I leave you with some final thoughts that hopefully convince you to watch: no it has absolutely nothing to do with how soap operas are made; yes you are not used to listen to Portuguese on a movie so give it some time it and you'll get through that and finally GIVE IT A SHOT, don't see just 1 or 2 episodes and give it a low rating based on that - kudos to the people involved, we need more content like this coming from Portugal.
