I just got back from dinner with friends. Fortunately it was in Groningen, so I could do everything on my bike. After dinner we watched a movie, I didn’t know before. I liked it very much, so that’s why I decided to write a review right away after coming home.
The whole story is set in Brazil, at Rio de Janeiro’s Central Station. Main character of the story is an old spinster, who used to be a teacher and she tries to make a living writing letters for people who cannot write themselves, so they pay her a small fee and then she writes a letter and promises to post them. Her life will change completely when something unexpected happens. One day she needs to write a letter for a woman who wants to reunite her son with his father. The son, who is still a young child, really wants to meet his father and has all kinds of grand ideas about him. The old spinster doesn’t like the idea, because she thinks that a father who left his wife (or mistress, that’s not clear at the beginning) behind with a young child isn’t much of a father. She suspects he will be a drunk and a bad influence for his son. She doesn’t like the idea and doesn’t hide that either. So after the mother has dictated the letter, paid for it, they leave, only to be hit in the street. The mother dies and the child is trying to survive in the Central Station, meeting the letter lady again, who still has the letter to his father. For some reason she decides to take the boy home (also not for too pious reasons, we find out later), which means her life will never be the same again.

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