Biopics offer us a robust opportunity to learn about historical figures, and are all the more powerful when their subject has been otherwise lost to history. For every tired redux of the Elvis story, there are countless heroes whose deeds of bravery have been forgotten and villains whose cruelty has been absolved by time. Their stories have the potential to inform modern audiences while also zapping us out of the stupor of the same characters of history. 

I'm Still Here, the Best Picture-nominated movie from Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles, certainly introduced me to a new hero of history in Eunice Paiva, the Brazilian activist who protested the forced disappearance of her husband and former congressman Rubens Paiva in the 1970s. While American audiences are no doubt familiar with the widespread unrest and various military dictatorships that plagued 20th century Latin America, individual tales are often lost in the shuffle of our US-centric history books. To tell the story, Salles adapts the eponymous 2015 novel by Paiva's son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, which follows how his father's kidnapping and his mother's search for justice traced his own childhood in Brazil. The end result, which was the runaway favorite for Best International Feature Film before securing the win at the 97th Academy Awards last week, is gripping for its first half but slowly trails off during what should have been a relatively victorious conclusion.

The growing menace of living under a dictatorial regime is captured perfectly in much of the film's tight, compelling beginning. Rubens, played with genial fatherliness by actor Selton Mello, is living by the beach in downtown Rio de Janeiro with his family, having returned to his architectural career and bowed out of politics for fear of retaliation against his leftist political beliefs. His wife Eunice, a tough-as-nails mother of five played brilliantly by actress Fernanda Torres (who went on to pick up an Oscar nom for the performance), is an active mom and socialite within her Rio community. Although the military coup happened over half a decade ago at this point, the Paivas are attempting to retain a sense of normalcy. They keep up traditions celebrating kids' lost teeth, cavort in beachside soccer games, and host festive finger-food cocktail hours with adult friends. (Beautiful backdrops of glistening Rio weather, wide bellbottom pants, energetic ice cream parlors, ample Beatles records, and thick handheld Super 8 cameras all situate us squarely in 1970 thanks to the hard work of production designer Carlos Conti and costume designer Cláudia Kopke.)

Rubens and Eunice grow slightly shaken as the kidnapping of a Swiss ambassador suggests exacerbating instability, and police checkpoints shaking down everyday Brazilians force their children to confront the military government directly. They send away one of their daughters to live in Europe, but refuse to move themselves; Rubens in particular believes their rightful place is in Rio, and refuses to "run away" despite his political background. So it's unfortunately not a surprise, but harrowing nonetheless, when plainclothes government agents show up to "take Rubens in" for questioning. Eunice and her oldest daughter are detained shortly thereafter, and thus follows a terrifying imprisonment. Although several hundred people were actually killed or disappeared during the dictatorship, it's estimated that more than 50,000 were detained and tens of thousands of those were tortured. Eunice's experience of dehumanization and abuse is thus frighteningly the norm, and we can't help but think of how many people were in her position in real life. Her survival against the dark behemoth of the military state is admirable, and captured forcefully by Torres' performance.

After Eunice's release, however, the movie starts treading some very familiar ground for biopics about human rights abuses in historical settings. Meetings with lawyers begin to build a case for Rubens' release; PR campaigns help spread the word, especially in more sympathetic and less censored foreign markets; personal and professional lives blur as the family is threatened by the government and destabilized by their patriarch's disappearance. That's not to say that it's not still artful to watch. For example, the family's warmly-decorated and decidedly lived-in home becomes more sterile with the notable absence of Rubens (a tonal shift that's the courtesy of cinematographer Adrian Teijido making use of tight spaces, as well as rich furniture and art choices from set decorators Paloma Buquer and Tatiana Stepanenko). Similarly, along the way, an energetic soundtrack of Brazilian funk and pop from the time period keeps spirits high even as Eunice falls apart in front of our eyes. 

But I'm Still Here really begins to overstay its welcome as its 138-minute runtime bleeds into not one but multiple lengthy postscripts for Eunice and her family. Rubens, long deceased, is survived by his family's determination to carry on his legacy in the form of solid familial bonds and broadly social-impact-focused careers. For a movie whose strength lies for most of its script in an honest portrayal of childhood against the backdrop of uncertainty (especially for older kids who have some sense of the evil around them), the epilogue vignettes focus much too heavily on the least interesting children. In particular, Marcelo Rubens Paiva wrote the memoir on which the movie is based, so his filmic representation takes a lot of the oxygen in latter-half scenes. So does the Maria Beatriz Facciolla Paiva character, a daughter who was interesting only in passing as a child and yet gets a whole narrative focus in adulthood. And since Fernanda Torres' star turn in the leading role is the highlight of the film, the final postscript shedding her entirely is a real loss. 

I expect many American audiences, particularly young ones, will come away shaken from I'm Still Here and the period of modern Brazilian history that it represents. However, it's a far cry from recent Best International Feature Film winners, and cutting a good chunk of its runtime could have tightened its messaging.