The Second Mother

A maid for a rich São Paulo family is allowed to take her provincial teenage daughter into the household, but tensions quickly surface between her old and new lives.

Val is a maid at a rich São Paulo household, diligently working hard each week to send money back to her daughter on the other side of Brazil. One day the daughter, Jéssica, unexpectedly arrives in the city asking to stay while she sits a University exam.

The family accept, but tensions quickly surface as Jéssica’s lifestyle sits at odds with her bourgeois surroundings. While Val finds herself torn between the demands of her biological daughter and those of Fabinho, the surrogate son to whom she’s become strongly attached. Widely admired since its debut at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, Anna Muylaert’s film mixes warm comedy and subtle drama while adroitly commenting on the social schisms emerging in a rapidly changing Brazil.