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Rating: rating

Marcos Bernstein's The Other Side of the Street is reasonably well acted and occasionally affecting, and it's set in the lovely Copacabana district of Rio de Janeiro. Its central conceit, however, is unconvincing, making the film seem much longer than it actually is. Perhaps it's supposed to be amusing that the 65-year-old protagonist, Regina (Fernanda Montenegro) is not a believable busybody who helps the police with routine tips but is some kind of senior super-cop, wearing leather pants to the local discotheque in order to bust up a child prostitution ring. Thus, suspension of disbelief collapses even before the plot has kicked in. The central narrative involving Regina's budding relationship with the possibly homicidal judge who lives across the street is framed within a mystery whose outcome is so predictable as to render much of the film a trial of patiently waiting for the other shoe to drop. The false sense of anxiety (complete with determinedly non-ironic and heavy-handed allusions to Rear Window) and the frequent bouts of sentimentality are ameliorated slightly by the sincerity of the performances and sporadic flashes of dark wit, as when Regina phones home in a panic to relay a traumatic experience to -- it suddenly dawns on her -- her dog. Unfortunately, such breaks in the mechanical tedium of the plot don't occur often enough. Regina and Carmago (Raul Cortez) could have been compelling characters, but The Other Side of the Street surrounds them with contrivance, and quickly grows tedious. Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide