Review - The Secret Agent
Directed by: Kleber Mendonca Filho
Written by: Kleber Mendonca Filho
Starring: Wagner Moura, Carlos Francisco, Tania Maria, Roberio Diogenes, Alice Carvalho, Gabriel Leone, Maria Fernanda Candido
Running Time: 158 Minutes
Rating: 4/5
Kleber Mendonça Filho has never been shy about his love for Brazil. The beauty, the contradictions, the ghosts that never quite settle. The Secret Agent may be his most fully realized expression of that affection. It is a film steeped in atmosphere, humid with politics and memory, and directed with the confidence of a filmmaker who knows every street and shadow of Recife instinctively.
Wagner Moura anchors the film with a performance built on restraint. His Armando is a man who has run out of places to hide yet refuses to surrender the last scraps of his dignity. Moura plays him with taciturn intensity and a constant undercurrent of tension, the kind that suggests the wrong word or the wrong silence could cost everything. It is one of his most controlled turns and arguably one of his best. A portrait of a man hollowed out by loss but unwilling to disappear.
Mendonça Filho lets the film simmer rather than boil. The paranoia of 1977 Brazil is never treated as background texture. It bleeds into the sound design, the editing, and the way the camera lingers on walls that feel as though they are listening. Recife during carnival becomes its own contradiction. Music, color, and bodies in motion set against Armando’s fear, grief, and quiet resolve. The tension is rarely loud, but it never loosens its grip.
What gives the film added weight is how clearly it belongs to a broader moment. Brazilian cinema has been on an impressive run, and The Secret Agent continues that streak with confidence. It is political without being didactic, stylish without posturing, and emotionally affecting without reaching for easy catharsis.
The supporting cast adds texture without pulling focus from Moura’s gravity. Maria Fernanda Cândido and Carlos Francisco, in particular, bring a lived-in warmth that contrasts sharply with Armando’s isolation. Udo Kier, appearing in his final role, manages to make even a handful of scenes feel strange and momentous. Still, Mendonça Filho keeps the film firmly centered on Armando and the quiet erosion of safety around him.
If the film falters at all, it is in its deliberate opacity. Viewers unfamiliar with the historical context may find parts of it elusive. But the mood carries it. The craft carries it. Moura carries it.
The Secret Agent is a reminder of what political thrillers can achieve when they are grounded in specificity and personal stakes. It is melancholic, beautifully controlled, and quietly devastating. A film deeply enamored with Brazil and unafraid to stare directly at the scars it still carries.
