a special love story. or, more comfortable, a story of friendship. because the love is more intense, seductive, powerful, remembering fado. a film about small things. old truths. about the need of the other, about a sort of sentimental link who seems ignored by too many, about need to trust, about past and present and roots and hope. more than a great film, it is a necessary one. for see you again, in the right light. an old lady. a young man. and the trust, few cigarettes, a book and new/old beginnings. short, fado.

The Portuguese film industry isn't much seen around the world and probably even not much seen in Portugal itself. I start by saying this because if you watch this or other Portuguese movies you will realize that doesn't have the same "look" that most of the more commercial movies that we are given. However and despite simple, this is one story that it's very worth being told and even more worthy of being seen! It may not have special effects, big scenarios or Hollywood stars but it has the most important: an honest story. In this movie two stories are told: a young boy mistreated by his family and an old woman who loses her husband and also doesn't have the support that she would actually need from her family. This could be the story of so many children and so many older people. Abandonement, loneliness, being treated like strangers, even considered insane by those who should love us the most! The fiction here is when two of these stories come together but here you won't find it fiction, because there isn't a single minute in this movie that you won't find that could be about your grandparents, your aunt, anyone you know or even yourself. Accompanied with a lovely soundtrack, if you want an escape from the usual movies this is certainly a good choice.

Like other users said, don't usually watch Portuguese cinema (not there is a lot of it..) but had a lovely evening watching this one. Great cast with consistent good performance. If you let it it will take you in an emotional journey, make you laugh and cry. And if it makes you feel things isn't it a success? I would say so! Fair enough, might be a simple predictable story with the typical happy"ish" ending, but what's wrong with it? Restores you faith in mankind, you end the movie feeling good and reflect on the fact that love and care comes in all sorts of shapes and unpredictable situations. On a last note, and as expected, you can see the film didn't have the millionaire budget like Hollywood does but, even so, kudos to everyone that put it together for the brilliant job.

This is a fun movie about several tragedies, placed in a dark Lisbon. Overall i think the main subject is friendship.The story is basically about an unexpected relationship between an old woman and a (still) teenager, which are connected by a mutual feeling of being abandoned and unloved.The movie tends to demonstrate in its universe that all blood family relationships are at some sort damaged or tragically nonexistent or unresolved, and i think there are two "cats" losing consecutive lives as the story progresses until both main characters achieves a mutual purpose, that is, they help one another to destroy the "spirits" of their lives that were working as a cage of protection but also as a repressive\self-destructing condition. (the movie title is in plural and while it supposedly refers only to the teenager i think the woman is another cat too).I also wonder if by the end both characters switch roles, the boy is the real older character (the only one that evolves into maturity) and the woman the only one that returns into a rejuvenated younger life, where she gets the chance to be a mother again and change a path of wrong into good; so the lesson here is and despite everything in between, "to love" is not necessary related to real blood relatives and comes out of indestructible friendship.The movie benefits a lot of having two of the best actors of their generation, the highly respected Nicolau Breyner (a small part, but Breyner is at a stage of his career that he can fill a screen with just an eye blink) and Maria do Céu Guerra, the latter as the protagonist and the one that really pushes the movie into a succession of laughs and tears and her connection with the young actor is what makes the movie interesting. A great performance by an actress which isn't afraid of swearing like if she regresses into a rude-revolted teen against her own family as well as criticizing severely how the elder are being treated by an ever increasing narcissistic society, as if old people are just like any other trash being dumped into a recycle bin.The problem of the movie is that the story itself after a while becomes too predictable and too unreal, like, e.g., a friend of the teenager all of the sudden knows where the woman was taken and goes to that location without any problem (and the place, which we can eventually think for the high or upper middle class, it's obviously open to everyone...) and talks to her and everything is fine again, which gives some reason to most of the critics that are heavily criticizing the movie as just a soap-opera dialogue entertainment. I guess they are right about it here and there (another example, it was obvious there was a sex scene intended for the teen and a girlfriend, which didn't add anything to the movie, but the scene is cut out while the action is just starting, as if the director wasn't sure if it cheapen the movie too much; also there's another concession in the highly debated trailer which clearly implies a "dirty" story between an old woman and a young boy, a shame really).So the movie does have potential but the reality is that it drags too much in its concessions into a blockbuster movie with soap-opera's light entertainment, that is, like we often said around here, "um conto-da-carochinha" (a Portuguese popular fairy tale named after a famous one, that is often used in a phrase where something is told but the audience knows is pure fantasy) where ethics are mostly static and the end is always happy, typical of some recent Portuguese cinema, that probably thinks that to sell enough tickets they need to be empty. Even so, Guerra's performance was so solid that it lifts the movie into a much higher level.