“ISABEL”

What does it mean to start over when you have already arrived at a life that, from the outside, seems perfectly fine? Gabe Klinger’s “Isabel” is devoted to this quiet, existential question, following a woman who appears to have everything and yet feels that something is missing.

At its center is Isabel, played by Marina Person, an experienced sommelier at an upscale restaurant in São Paulo. She is competent, respected by guests, and confident in her craft. For her, wine is not a status symbol but a passion, especially natural, unpolished bottles from small producers, wines with texture and character. Her boss, Tommaso (Marat Descartes), sees things differently. He thinks economically, calculates risks, and rejects many of her recommendations. Between them, a quiet but constant tension develops, expressed less through open confrontation than through subtle humiliations. When Tommaso wordlessly pours her selected wines down the sink, it becomes more than a business decision. It is a symbolic gesture of dismissal.

Parallel to this, Isabel lives with her partner Fred, a Frenchman who radiates artistic ease. Together, they produce their own wine in the backyard. These sequences are among the film’s strongest moments, which are such as stomping grapes barefoot, bottling, and carefully labeling each bottle. Wine is celebrated in its materiality, its scent, and its texture. These scenes feel almost documentary in their immediacy and lend the film a sensual quality that lingers. When Isabel meets the American businessman Pat (John Ortiz), a potential investor, the dream of opening her own wine bar suddenly seems within reach. Their conversations are charming and lightly flirtatious, built on shared enthusiasm. Isabel begins scouting empty storefronts, roughly calculating costs, and brings her colleague Nico (Caio Horowicz) on board. Nico shares her frustration with Tommaso and adds youthful energy to the venture.

It is here, however, that the film’s weaknesses become apparent. Despite her years of experience in gastronomy, Isabel appears surprisingly naive in her planning. Financial risks are underestimated and dependencies insufficiently questioned. When Pat proves unreliable, the project falters. In her relationship with Fred, too, Isabel lacks transparency. His trip to France for a family obligation coincides with her business plans and widens the emotional distance between them. Yet instead of fully exploring this tension, the film only brushes against it.

Marina Person nevertheless crafts a layered portrayal of Isabel. She conveys frustration through subtle nuances, revealing both self-doubt and defiance. Isabel is not an idealized heroine but a woman with rough edges, capable of making mistakes, hurting others, and failing herself. This ambivalence is one of the film’s great strengths. At the same time, the screenplay often remains too restrained to make her inner conflict truly palpable. “Isabel” unfolds within a carefully composed, stylish urban world. Cafes, backyards, small shops, and modern apartments are lovingly designed and atmospherically coherent. São Paulo itself remains strangely indistinct. Although the director seems to conceive of the city as a central presence, it never quite finds its own voice. Much of it feels generically urban, as if the story could just as easily take place in a European metropolis. The city’s social contradictions and specific character remain more backdrop than driving force.

The film introduces compelling ideas. A woman attempting to reinvent herself beyond conventional roles, a stage of life in which security is exchanged for risk, and the friction between idealism and economic reality. Yet these tensions are rarely pushed to their limits. Conflicts often stall halfway, decisions lose weight because their consequences are not fully explored. Even Tommaso’s potential reaction remains more background noise than a real threat. What ultimately carries it is the calm and almost serene tone. Rather than staging dramatic turning points, it lingers in between moments. Music, wine evenings, conversations with friends, and small celebrations infuse the narrative with warmth. The portrait of an urban middle class that emerges feels understated and refreshingly free of clichéd images of Brazil. This restraint makes the film likable, even if it also robs it of narrative sharpness.

Promising themes and a compelling lead performance are present, but the decisive dramatic pressure is missing. One enjoys the atmosphere, appreciates the authenticity in its treatment of wine, and willingly follows Marina Person through her quiet crisis. Yet the emotional force, the lasting escalation, the transformative moment that would alter everything never fully arrives. In the end, “Isabel” resembles a wine crafted with care and promise, whose flavor fades more quickly than one might hope.