Cinema’a best mother in the world ‘reveals the invisible strength of those who carry the world on their backs

In The best mother in the worldwhich hits theaters from this Thursday, August 7, Anna Muylaert Returns to the female universe with the same sensitivity and narrative rigor that marked their best works.

After presenting to the public figures such as the maid who challenges domestic hierarchies in What time does she come back? or the mother who discovers a change of babies in Mother there is only onethe director now focuses on Gallerylived by Shirley Cruz (The Business Women’s Club), a black woman, recyclable picker and mother of two children, who flees an abusive relationship carrying her life (and her children) in the wagon, literally.

Once again, Muylaert It builds a character that rises from pain but is not defined by it. Shirley Cruz Deliver a deeply physical performance. Your Gallery It moves with the symbolic weight of all that needs to abandon – and the actress, who refused to use stuntmen in the most demanding scenes, transforms her body into language.

The relationship between Gallery and their children, interpreted by Rihanna Barbosa and Benin Ayoit is the heart of the narrative. Muylaert It bets on naturalness as a method, and this choice resonates with the authenticity of gestures, lines and silences. Not only does the film accompany an escape, it plunges into a process of intimate and painful transformation, but also hopeful.

It is a mistake to see in this journey an edifying fable or a glorification of maternity; Muylaert never transform Gallery in martyr. It recognizes domestic, institutional and urban violence, but refuses to aesthetize it. The “best mother in the world” of the title is not idealized for her sacrifice, but by her humanity: strong and fragile, loving and exhausted, vulnerable and determined.

The male appears once again in the director’s filmography, but as a destabilizing element and not as a axis of the narrative. Are the decisions of Galleryand not the abuse of Leandro (Seu Jorge, Marighella), that move the plot. This reaffirms the central place of women in the director’s cinema.

The best mother in the world synthesizes and deepens already recurring themes in the filmography of Muylaert. Maternity is once again tense, not as naturalized instinct, but as a construction crossed by class, race and gender inequalities.

Gallery It’s not just a mother: she is a woman, a worker, companion, victim, protagonist of her own resistance. Muylaert It does not deliver a happy ending in the traditional mold, but a possible gesture of freedom: a fresh start without guarantees, but with dignity. Social realism here is not opposed to affection; On the contrary, lyricism emerges from the very roughness of reality.

In the end, The best mother in the world reinforces the commitment to Anna Muylaert with a cinema that gives centrality to the stories of invisible women. Without resorting to melodrama or emotional manipulation, she builds a sensitive, feminine and deeply honest narrative.

It is a movie that imposes itself by the strength of the details, the careful listening and the refusal to simplify what is, by nature, complex. Gallery He carries the world on his back, not as a mythical heroine, but as so many women who go walking, even when no one sees them.

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