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The movie theatre was dark and the only sounds that could be heard—except for the occasional munching of popcorn—were those from the big screen. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Fernanda Torres, the Brazilian actress in “I’m Still Here,” who plays Eunice Paiva, who becomes an unlikely crusader after the disappearance of her husband during Brazil’s military dictatorship. I knew the plot more or less before I went to the Somerville Theatre with two Brazilian friends. But Torres made me laugh and cry and be on the edge of my seat as an innocent family saga transformed into horror and then resilience.
“I was brought up under the dictatorship,” one of the Brazilians told me. “So I didn’t know anything else. I didn’t watch the country crumble. My parents did.” It seemed obvious we were both thinking of something else.