Vera

Despite her reluctance to leave, 18-year-old Nogueira is released from the orphanage where she has lived for many years. While in the orhanage she slowly assumed a number of masculine characteristics in an effort to deal with her environment, and she finds these personality quirks make it difficult for her to function in the outside world. This is an effective portrait of the quintessential outcast--the painful incomprehension of her solitary experience, the single-minded focus of her fantasized escape, and the damning evidence of her inescapable existence. Nogueira, who was 18 years old at the time of the filming, gives a performance that displays an extraordinary...