Creature Feature: Good Manners
Marjorie Estiano and Isabél Zuaa find out love can be a monstrous thing in Good Manners.
Raising a kid is a real nightmare in this horror fairytale
What’s Good Manners About?
Clara (Isabél Zuaa), a struggling nurse in São Paulo, takes a job working for the lonely Ana (Marjorie Estiano). Pregnant with a one-night stand’s child, Ana has been shunned by her family and friends is now looking at a life of raising her son alone.
As Clara and Ana grow closer, Clara notices there are some oddities about Ana’s habits. Though she’s a vegetarian, Ana keeps buying meat. She seems to sleepwalk quite a bit and act strangely. And during the full moon…well, she eats cats.
As Clara comes to understand what’s happening to Ana, the unthinkable happens. Now, Clara must decide whether her love for Ana is strong enough to raise a literal monster.
Is the Creature Cool?
The creature itself is a bit underwhelming, but Good Manners has some excellent practical effects. After every change, Clara must transform her adopted son back into a little boy. This means clipping fierce claws and shaving the thick hair that creeps up his neck and over his shoulders. It’s an effective way of showing the humanity of this monster, who is, after all, just a little boy when the moon isn’t full.
What Makes Good Manners Interesting?
Being a parent is a horror show sometimes. Even if you’re doing something for your child’s best interest, it can be a crushing burden. Good Manners knows this. It’s a haunting fairytale about what we do for those we love, and the sacrifices we make without thinking about it.
Think of this movie like a lost Guillermo del Toro film. It blends genres like horror, musical, and fairytale together to get a product that is both weird and wonderful. Writer/directors Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas play with the world they form, looking at how loneliness can color our lives and make us cling steadfastly to the ones we love. It’s a tender, sympathetic look at how love and fear can make monsters of us all.
Cinematography by Rui Poças helps further set the scene. São Paulo is a dreamy wash of colors at night as Clara and Ana roam the streets. Poças gives the whole film an eerie surreal feeling that romanticizes the world with a painterly color palette. The blue cast of the moon and the bright reds of blood make many frames look like illustrations from children’s books. The film blends these vivid images with actual animation as the story unfolds, melding a literal storybook with the world around Clara and Ana.
The movie is also anchored by a solid performance from Zuaa. Her Clara is crushingly lonely. It seems every time she’s able to make a connection with someone, fate snatches it away from her. So, she clings to her chance to have a piece of Ana with her, and tells herself that she can control the impulses of an increasingly feral child.
Inherently, stories about werewolves are often tragic. They tend to be one of the few movie monsters that don’t embrace their traits. They tend to want to regain their humanity, or at least contain the beast. It’s typically used as a metaphor for people struggling with the beast within (The brilliant Ginger Snaps being the exception to that). It’s similar with Good Manners, which expands on the tragedy of the werewolf to make it a metaphor for parenthood. Even if you do everything right, things can go awry easily.
What if werewolves didn’t remember what they did when the moon was full? What if they were children who couldn’t understand why precautions must be taken? Can you raise something with monstrous impulses to be good? These are all questions that Good Manners asks, and the answers are both beautiful and sad.
Clara believes she’s up for the task, even keeping a little bedroom for her charge, that she tries to make inviting and happy, even though it’s a concrete cell and chains to keep the little wolf from harming anyone. It’s arresting to see a mother’s love manifest through chains and confinement, but it’s the only way to keep everyone safe. Yet another horrible task she must perform to protect herself from loss.
In the end, love makes monsters of us all.
Verdict
If you’ve seen The Shape of Water more than once, this gem of a movie will charm you immediately. It’s a lovely and unique interpretation of a well-worn monster trope.
Good Manners is rated PG and available to stream on AMC+ or Shudder.
