Vitalina Varela follows its titular character, a Cape Verdean woman who arrives in Lisbon to meet her husband who's been gone for 40 years. As soon as she lands in the capital, she learns that he died three days ago. We follow Vitalina through the shanty town of Fontainhas as she navigates the traces that her husband left behind, discovering his secrets and his illicit life.
On August 14, 2019, the film had its world premiered at the Locarno Film Festival where it won the Golden Leopard and the Leopard for Best Actress. The film was then released around the world, through many film festivals. The film had its US premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 6, 2019. On January 24, 2020, it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival.
Vitalina Varela was theatrically released in the United States by Grasshopper Film on February 21, 2020, and on DVD and Blu-ray on September 8, 2020.
On the review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 62 reviews, with an average rating of 8.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Rigorous and beautifully composed, Vitalina Varela is a quietly absorbing drama whose placid surface belies hidden depths."[6]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 86 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "Universal acclaim".[7]
Sight & Sound considered it the tenth best film of 2019, even saying: "Varela’s performance is elemental, forged in fire. It never ceases to astonish just what miracles Costa is able to wrest from non-actors, or more accurately, coach them to wrest from themselves, but this is probably the most formidable performance, and the most potent screen presence, as yet in his work."
