This film tells us a story of high-society prostitution, corruption, power and money, but it is essentially a good portrait of Portuguese society nowadays! The plot is very well conceived and "touches" in some "crucial points" which are "rotten" in our society
We all know that money and sex are the "things" that make the world turn around, and this movie proves it clearly!
The plot is about the president of a little village, in the south Portugal between Alentejo and the Algarve, and a touristic project that he didn't want to approve because it would cause a major impact on the local environment. But behind this project there was an important multinational with too much power and they don't want to give up from the project, because there's too much money involved
so they use a dirty way to "catch him": They contract a high-society call girl, Maria (played by Soraia Chaves), to seduce the President Meireles (played by Nicolau Breyner) and control him to the point of making him sign the project. Beautiful as she is, Meireles was caught from the first moment! He didn't resist, as expected! Beside, from the beginning of the plot, we also follow two detectives of Polícia Judiciaria, Madeira (Ivo Canelas) and Neves (Jose Raposo) that, by chance, get noticed of this crime of corruption and start investigating. The result you will see in the end of the movie
That's why this country is like it is! (I won't spoil the end of the movie because I think that is right there where is the main social critic of this movie, and even being a bit predictable, I think it's a good ending which doesn't deserve to be spoiled!)
About the acting I think it's very good from (generally) all actors.
Soraia Chaves does a great job. She's beautiful and she does perfectly this role of Call Girl, because she fits very well in the character. I read somewhere that she said something like this: "I don't believe that will be the shapes of my body that will determinate the success of this movie"
In fact, if in the first time I read that I laughed, now I must say I agree with Soraia! There's no doubt that Soraia's nudity in this film works like an attraction to the viewer. Almost like Mr. President the viewer is caught by Soraia's beauty, but this film has much more to offer besides it! It's a good social critic, it has a nice story/plot, acting, production; I think it's a very good movie to Portuguese standards! That's what Soraia meant to say I suppose
So, her nudity works just like marketing to attract the common Portuguese viewer, that is so disbelieved in Portuguese cinema!...
Nicolau Breyner also has an excellent performance, much better that in his other recent Portuguese film, CORRUPÇÃO
Well, generally, I think this film is a good example of what Portuguese cinema can be. We need more like this one!
