Trabalhar Cansa (2011)

Trabalhar Cansa: Directed by Marco Dutra, Juliana Rojas. With Helena Albergaria, Marat Descartes, Naloana Lima, Gilda Nomacce. Young housewife Helena is on the verge of fulfilling a dream as she prepares to open her own business: a neighborhood grocery store. She hires a maid, Paula, to take care of her house and daughter. But when her husband Otavio is suddenly fired from his job as an insurance executive, Helena is left to support the family alone. As Otavio fails to find work and becomes increasingly alienated, business struggles to take off and the pressure on Helena mounts. To make things worse, she discovers that one of the building’s brick walls seems to be crumbling. Helena begins to wonder if that may be the cause of all her problems.

“Hard Labor is an extremely straightforward drama about a family struggling with finding work and paying the bills while also opening a new business. Donu0026#39;t let the genre categories on the internet fool you, thereu0026#39;s no horror or mystery to be had here, other than the horror of making a living in a difficult job market and the mystery of where youu0026#39;ll find the money to pay the bills. They try to weave in some unusual things going on, but most of that adds nothing to the film. I believe these little dark moments are an attempt at weaving a bit of metaphor into the plot, but thatu0026#39;s not really necessary to further the story. On the one hand, I have to compliment the writers/directors on some of the cliched choices they didnu0026#39;t add into the film. There were a few times I thought things would go down an annoying path as the characters made awful life choices, but this simply wasnu0026#39;t that type of movie. On the other hand, I have to criticize the writers/directors because they didnu0026#39;t have much of anything happen in the movie. Itu0026#39;s a bland and dull journey that focuses on depressing drama in a way that completely turned me off. I was ready to go along for the ride with Hard Labor, and found myself invested in the story they were telling for part of the runtime, but it was far from a thrill-ride.”