‘The Best Mother in the World’ Review: Another Study of Maternal Resilience From Brazil’s Anna Muylaert

variety.com:

Guy Lodge Film Critic The title isn’t intended ironically in “The Best Mother in the World” — at least not to the extent it is in, say, “The Worst Person in the World.” But there’s a truism embedded in its hyperbole: Most people on good terms with their mother would describe her as the world’s greatest, regardless of any flaws and errors along the way.

The two young children of Gal (Shirley Cruz), the endlessly put-upon protagonist of Brazilian writer-director Anna Muylaert‘s new film, believe as much, their devotion only strengthened as the script puts them collectively through the wringer.

Conscientiously addressing a national crisis of domestic abuse while also lunging for the heartstrings, the film is an uneven balance of grainy social realism and crowd-pleasing uplift, but Cruz’s resolute performance just about holds it together.

Muylaert remains best known for her 2015 feature “The Second Mother,” a Sundance prizewinner that gained widespread distribution on the strength of its measured class commentary and open-hearted feeling.