It’s likely that few of you have heard of or even seen Bruno Barreto’s Reaching for the Moon. Even less likely is your knowledge of the love affair between American poet Elizabeth Bishop and Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares which is unfortunate because these women were two of the greatest minds of their time. Creatively and professionally, Elizabeth and Lota were brilliant visionaries who defied the gender norms of the period in which they lived, loved, and thrived. As a film, Reaching for the Moon attempts to navigate the complexities of this relationship and does so with a striking tenderness.
In the film, Elizabeth (Miranda Otto) is on the brink of her greatness as a poet. We see her as being within reach of her creative pinnacle…she’s only got a few stanzas, a few miles, a few years, and few loves to go. And so, she makes her way down to Brazil to get away from the humdrum of her life in New York. There, she meets with a college friend named Mary (Tracy Middendorf) as well as Mary’s lover Lota (Gloria Pires), a celebrated architect and out-n-proud lesbian. Right from the start, Elizabeth and Lota are drawn to each other despite their differences in culture and personality. And even though there’s Mary to consider, Elizabeth and Lota immediately call in the U-Haul truck…or whatever its equivalent was back in 1960’s Brazil.
From there, the film explores all the ways in which one can express a love as grand as the one between Elizabeth and Lota. While Elizabeth writes poems about her ever-growing love, Lota blows up mountains to build her lover a writing studio. These grand creative gestures culminate in the greatest achievements of these women’s lives. For Elizabeth, it’s the Pulitzer; for Lota, it’s a national park.
All throughout, Reaching for the Moon ensures that the audience understands how powerful, how addictive, and even how damaging passionate love can be. As a couple, Elizabeth and Lota leave blood, sweat, and tears in their wake. Everything behind them is collateral damage for a love that turns out to be quite tragic in and of itself. All in all, it’s a story that warns us that love can be as beastly as it is beautiful.
Miranda Otto and Gloria Pires turn in really solid performances. Unfortunately, the production quality doesn’t quite match their artistic integrity. It seems as though much of the film’s moderate budget was spent on getting location shots, many of which don’t add much to the film. While the bulk of the film is set in Brazil, we get a few random shots of New York that really could have been shot anywhere. And there are, of course, some very obvious green screen bits and bobs throughout which cheapen the overall feel.
Production quality aside, though, Reaching for the Moon is worth seeing—for the love, the acting, the poetry, and the beauty of it all.
Watch the trailer:
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