Joana has a problem. She's a language translator in a dead end job and has recently moved to Porto Alegre with her girlfriend and their dog. When she has a road accident, her life begins to unravel.

This was an interesting yet understated movie. While it doesn't exactly wrap up with a clear ending, it is well-made and well-acted. Joana clearly is unhappy and clings for any intimacy in her life because her relationship seems to be going nowhere and she's pregnant with a child, it's not exactly clear that she wants. Moreover, she and her girlfriend don't seem connected. There is very little indication that their relationship is working well. She doesn't even tell her partner about the accident directly. The baby they're having seems like a bandaid to create love that isn't there. Joana is unemotional and disconnected. She's not acting like a victim but how do victims react to trauma? That's the question at the centre of this movie.

Moreover, the family who hit her try to blackmail her for their own gain. With any of these plot lines, this would have been a very strong film but instead, it suffers from far too little meat and too much minimalism. Just when it seems like we're getting inside Jo's head, the film is nearly over. Normally, I don't wish for longer movies and at 90 minutes, the film is the correct length. Yet, it would have benefited from a few more scenes to explain Joana's state of mind better. Overall, the film is a solid 6 out of 10 for its high marks in storytelling even if it was a little flat in the last 30 minutes.

"The Accident" offers us a thoughtful story that doesn't focus on the main character Joana in the terms of her personality, but more in the themes of Joana's choices and her inner fight - with the different presurres from her surroundings but also with herself. The plot puts before us a moral dilema in which we are not really sure whose side we are on - which makes us experience the same emotions as Joana thus making us one with the protagonist. Although I must admit that "The Accident" speaks to me much more as a TV film than a picture for the silver screen, it is still a very well made TV film with good cast, serious and contemporary social issues, and decently built plot. And of course I cannot not point out the important theme of LGBTQI+ representation in conremporary cinema in the form of the protagonist - Joana - being in a lesbian couple.

A cyclist has an altercation with a motorist, and is almost run down by her. At first the cyclist, Joana, for some reason keeps the knowledge of the accident from her lesbian lover, but then the driver's son, the passenger in the car, posts a video of the event on his YouTube channel. Joana finds the mother and son and slowly works her way into their lives.

O Acidente is a slow-moving and uneventful film, that doesn't ever make clear any of the motivations of any of the characters and doesn't resolve anything introduced by the end, so it's a rather unfulfilling and undernourished watch, but well-crafted and thoughtful throughout all the same.

5½ /10.