Genre Romance

The Day I Met You (2023)

Item: The Day I Met You
Author: Ross McLaren

Brazilian cinema has a long and varied tradition of low-budget, character-driven filmmaking, and The Day I Met You (2023) sits comfortably within that lineage. Directed by André Novais Oliveira and produced through a collaboration between Filmes de Plástico, Canal Brasil, and Malute Filmes, the film is a short, modest romantic comedy running at just 69 minutes. It centres on Zeca, a librarian who commutes by bus to a school in a neighbouring town, and whose carefully organised morning routine starts to unravel in ways that feel both mundane and quietly significant. Into that disrupted life comes Louisa, and the film unfolds from there in what appears to be a gentle, unhurried fashion. It is the sort of film that seems to ask very little of you and offers something warm in return, a tone that tends to thrive in Brazilian independent filmmaking circles.

Oliveira is a filmmaker associated with the so-called "Contagem school" of Brazilian independent cinema, a loose collective of directors making films in and around the city of Contagem in Minas Gerais, often with non-professional or locally rooted casts. That sensibility is visible in the production here, which has the feel of something personal and unforced rather than polished but unremarkable studio work. The cast includes Renato Novaes, Grace Passô, Stan Alban, Kelly Crifer, and Norberto Novais Oliveira (whose shared surname with the director suggests the close-knit, semi-autobiographical spirit that often characterises this kind of filmmaking). Grace Passô, it is worth noting, is a respected figure in Brazilian theatre as well as screen work, and her presence lends the production a certain credibility beyond the indie circuit. For viewers familiar with other Brazilian productions reviewed on this site, such as Candomblé in Togo (1972), there is an interesting thread to trace through the country's independent and non-mainstream output across the decades.

As a romantic comedy, the film invites comparison with others in the genre that prioritise mood and character over plot mechanics. Where something like I'm Drunk, I Love You (2017), another romance reviewed here, uses the slow build of feeling between two people as its central engine, The Day I Met You seems similarly interested in the texture of everyday life rather than dramatic incident. Its brevity is presumably a deliberate choice rather than a limitation, fitting for a story that appears to be about small moments accumulating into something meaningful. Whether it fully achieves that is, unfortunately, a question that comes with a significant practical caveat.

Literally searched everywhere for a version with English subs and it was nowhere to be found. My Portuguese is very basic... so I used a translation app to help but even then it's not ideal. For that reason... I just can't give it a fair review or score. From what I understood, I think I'd really enjoy it. I hope there aren't too many more films with no English subs on this challenge

It is genuinely frustrating when a film ends up being almost impossible to assess fairly because of something as straightforward as subtitle availability, and this one fell right into that gap. From what I could piece together, there is something here worth seeing: the pacing feels considered, the performances have a naturalism to them even through the blur of a translation app, and the whole thing has a warmth that comes across even when the specifics are lost on you. I would genuinely go back to this one if a properly subtitled version ever surfaces, which I hope it does. Films like this deserve the audience they were presumably made for, and it would be a shame if language access is the thing that keeps it off people's radar. Sometimes the most honest thing you can say about a film is simply: I want another go at it.

Rating: Not rated | Year: 2023 | Watched: 2026-04-03

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